Virar police bust major fake document racket in construction

MUMBAI: The Virar police have busted a major racket of fabricated documents for the registration of construction projects with the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA).

Police officials said they had arrested five persons—four of them in the construction business—and recovered a huge stock of fake rubber stamps and letterheads of revenue officials from Thane and Palghar districts, MMRDA, CIDCO and the Vasai-Virar City municipal corporation (VVCMC). A police officer said that at least 55 buildings were probably constructed with the help of the fake documents and the scam was likely to run into hundreds of crores.

The arrested accused are landowner Dilip Benvanshi (31), Machhindra Vhanmane (37), owner of Mayur Enterprises, Dilip Adkhale (40) of Phoenix Corporation, Prashant Patil (33), a partner in Rudransh Realtors, and stamp-maker Rajesh Naik, 54.

According to Rajendra Kamble, senior police inspector at Virar police station, the FIR was registered following a complaint lodged by Ganesh Patil, the in-charge assistant commissioner of Ward C, Chandansar, about two buildings, Rudransh A and Rudransh B, constructed in the area. The owners/partners of Rudransh Realtors already have an FIR registered against them—in February this year, the Virar police registered the FIR under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, the Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act, and the Registration Act.

In his complaint, Patil said that the accused had used fabricated documents like non-agriculture permission, construction permission, occupancy certificate and search reports by using the forged signatures of the district collectors of Thane, Palghar and the town planner of VVCMC, and got the project registered with MahaRERA.

Patil further told the police that the builder had unauthorisedly constructed the ground-plus-five-storied buildings without obtaining permission from the competent authority, and, using bogus construction permissions, got over 40 sale deeds registered with two secondary registrars in Vasai. He added that after the civic body noticed that the buildings were unauthorised and sealed the flats in them, the accused broke open the seals and handed over the flats to buyers.

“During the investigation, the police searched Vhanmane’s office and found documents related to fabricated non-agriculture permission from the district collector of Palghar, bogus construction permission from the town-planning department of VVCMC, and such other bogus documents, 22 rubber stamps, letterheads and so on,” said Kamble. A bogus sanctioned plan, bogus commencement certificate and bogus occupancy certificates for Rudransh A and Rudransh B buildings were also seized.

The police officer said they had seized 93 rubber stamps of various authorities like the collector and deputy collector of Thane, deputy director of VVCMC, the village development officer, sarpanch, secondary registrars at Vasai and Bhiwandi, MMRDA officers, various architects, lawyers and doctors, and around 600 letterheads of VVCMC, which are required for fabricating commencement certificates, and over 500 letterheads of CIDCO from Adkhale.

Kamble added that the police also found 55 files in Adkhale’s office, which contained various bogus construction permissions, occupancy certificates, maps and blueprints prepared for various developers. He said the seizure indicated that at least 55 buildings had been constructed using fake documents. “Some of these buildings were constructed in 2015,” he said. “We suspect that a few officials from VVMC or other government agencies are also involved in the racket which is likely to run into hundreds of crores.”