Uttarakhand CM's plot: Case against clerks over forgery

Police here Monday registered a criminal case against clerks of the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) for forging documents to sell a plot of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat in the Indirapuram area.

Police said a man named Gulab Yadav filed a complaint in which he alleged that GDA clerk Vinay Kumar lured him to buy two plots in February 2010.

He said the clerk arranged a meeting with supervisors Chandra Pal and Virpal Raghav, who called three clerks Prashant Kumar, Rajendra and Mewa Lal.

After a month, the six officials demanded Rs.25 lakh as the initial amount for the plots.

Yadav said he paid the money to Mewa Lal.

The clerks later gave him an allotment letter signed by then GDA joint secretary Shambhu Nath for a plot in Gyan Khand I in Indirapuram.

However, the allotment letter was in the name of Vimal Chand Mitra, a resident of Nehru Nagar in Ghaziabad.

Yadav said the men demanded Rs.1.2 crore for the plot, and provided another allotment letter for a second plot in Govind Puram for Rs.80 lakh.

He said he did not get any plot, and has been complaining to the GDA for the last four years. But no action had been initiated against their clerks and supervisors.

GDA Officer on Special Duty (OSD) R.P. Pandey said that during investigation, it was found that the plot in Gyan Khand was in the name of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat.

The allotment letter in the name of Mitra was not there in the GDA's records as he had withdrawn his earnest money of Rs.5 lakh in December 1992.

The other plot in Govindpuram was allotted to Shiela Devi, but it was cancelled in 1996 after the woman failed to make timely payments. This plot in GDA's records stands vacant.

"Both the files pertaining to the plot of the Uttarakhand chief minister and that to the Govindpuram plot are also in order. An inquiry is being conducted in the matter," Pandey said.

Ghaziabad Police Circle Officer Ranvijay Singh said that on the basis of evidence, a criminal case on charges of cheating and forgery has been registered against the erring clerks. No arrest has been made so far.