NH 754-A project: Moga patwari booked for forging papers to get ₹1-crore relief

A Moga patwari prepared forged documents of government land in the name of a woman migrant labourer, which was acquired for the national highway 754-A project in Adraman village in the Dharamkot sub-division of Moga district, to claim a compensation of ₹1 crore, found the inquiry conducted by the Dharamkot sub-divisional magistrate (SDM).

The police on Monday booked patwari Navdeep Singh of Moga and Dilkhush Kumari of Moga, who was the beneficiary. A case was registered under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) at the Dharamkot police station.

The inquiry report reads that the land was acquired at Adraman village in Dharamkot sub-division of Moga district for the construction of NH 754A. “A compensation of ₹1, 00,65,724 was issued to Kumari as a beneficiary by the Moga revenue officer. After getting applications from former tehsildar Gurmeet Singh and former kanugo Surjit Singh, it came to light that the land for which compensation was issued was already owned by the state government. Under a planned conspiracy, forged documents and fake land record entry were prepared in the name of Kumari and the accused managed to get the compensation issued,” it reads.

Further inquiry found that the signatures of patwari Shinda Singh and tehsildar Gurmeet Singh were forged on the land record entry. “The signature samples of Shinda and Gurmeet were sent to the forensic science laboratory, Mohali for verification. The forensic report concluded that their signatures on land record entries were fake,” the inquiry added.

“In the forged mutation entry, six kanal and 18 marla land was not included but patwari Navdeep added its details in the assessment register and made it part of the land eligible for compensation. It clearly shows Navdeep got a compensation amount issued to Kumari fraudulently,” it reads.