Property scam of over ₹100 crore unearthed in Gurugram

The police have unearthed more than 100 cases of fraudulent sale of affordable houses in Haryana that was carried out by allegedly forging the general power of attorney (GPA) executed in favour of prospective buyers in Noida of Uttar Pradesh, with the arrest of four people last week.

Police said the four men, arrested between April 23 and 26, used to get the list of allottees of affordable housing projects. Posing as officials of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), they used to approach the allottees on the pretext of verifying their documents.

The accused were identified as Sumit Chotani, the kingpin of the gang and a resident of Sector 8, Rinku Panchal, a resident of Baldev Nagar in Gurugram and Krishan Singh, Mukesh Jhangra and Jitender Singh of Narwana in Jind. The police said they used to demand photocopies of the allottees’ documents such as ration cards, voter ID cards and PAN cards, and later, forged the documents. Police commissioner Muhammad Akil said the gang is likely to have forged more than 300 GPAs and sold flats for ₹8 to ₹12 lakh, despite each unit costing only ₹3.5 lakh.

The ownership of a flat is transferred via GPA as the Haryana government has put a ban on the sale of EWS flats for minimum lock in period of five years

Pradeep Yadav, a 41-year-old advocate, bought an EWS flat in Housing Board, Sector 48, in October 2012. He paid ₹12 lakh to Sumit Chotani and his associate Rinku Panchal on the day the GPA was transferred to him. In 2016, he went to the Housing Board office to take possession of the house, where he came in contact with its owner.

Yadav approached the police and lodged a complaint. “Police summoned Virender, a resident of Rohtak. He had all the documents and was the original buyer of the flat. He was unaware of the scam. The complainant refused to identify him and told the police he is not the Virender from whom he had bought the flat,” said Akil.

In March 2018, the Badshahpur police relaunched the investigation following a report on GPA forging from the Economic Offences Wing.

After the EOW submitted the report to the commissioner, police started scanning the call detail records of Chotani and Panchal, provided by the complainant, which led them to their locations.

On March 26, non-bailable warrants were issued against the four. One of the accused, Rinku Panchal, got interim bail from the Punjab and Haryana high court.

On April 23, three teams comprising the station house officer raided Chotani’s house in Sector 8 and arrested him.Chotani allegedly revealed their modus operandi and confessed to the crime.

Police said they made nearly ₹100 crore between 2012 and 2017. In most of the cases, Mukesh Jhangra and Krishan Kumar were made witnesses during the registration and their fake address used to be of Gurugram.

Sushil Kumar Singh, assistant inspector general of Stamp and Registration department, Noida, said he is unaware of the alleged scam. “I will resume work on Wednesday and will check it. I have not received any such complaint against anyone from my department,” he said.