ACB arrests 4 for land fraud
Four officers, including two retired staffers of the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) landed in the police’s net on Wednesday for allegedly forging and colluding with a villager to fraudulently benefit from a land acquisition compensation scheme.
Those arrested include Class II land survey officers Dayanand Bhaskar Tandel (41) and Ramesh Sonawane (51), farmer Lakshman Govind Tandel and his son Sanjay. The accused were arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Navi Mumbai unit on Wedn-esday morning on the basis of a complaint lodged by a social worker Sandeep Thakur in 2005.
Eight others, including two retired Cidco officers Anant Nathuram Dalvi and Sheela Moreshwar Joshi and the wife and kin of farmer Lakshman Tandel were booked by the ACB in a case filed at the CBD Belapur police station. The fraud pertains to a particular land acquisition compensation scheme floated by the Cidco in the 90s where the authority gives 12.5 per cent redeveloped land in return for the land it acquired from residents. According to an ACB official, Lakshman, a beneficiary of the scheme, wanted his sons and daughters to get plots of land as well.
“At the insistence of Lakshman, Dayanand and Ramesh mentioned him as a deceased on the award document. The officers then forged the copy of the award document and mentioned his wife, three sons and three daughters on the beneficiary list,” the officer explained. “Tandel was therefore awarded two different plots of land in Nerul at Sector 44 and Sector 36,” said deputy superintendent of police Bharat Shelke.
Post new comment