‘Metropolitan magistrate’s stamp’ helps unravel forged property papers, 3 booked

Indian Express: Mumbai: Monday, December 25, 2017.

Three people were booked on Tuesday for allegedly encroaching upon a plot of land in Kandivali. The alleged land grab came to light after a taxi driver discovered that the lease deed of the land, which the accused had submitted, though dated 1970, was stamped by the metropolitan magistrate, four years before the post of metropolitan magistrate was created in Mumbai.

Based on this, a local court found the documents to be forged and directed the Borivali police station to register an FIR in the matter.

The accused have been identified as Ramnarayan Pandey, Dhirubhai Jenthawani and Bhaskar Singh.

The complainant in the case, Anirudh Tiwari, a taxi driver, does not own the land but took up the issue because he was allegedly cheated by the accused in the past. He received the documents related to the property under the RTI act.

“After checking the documents, I found that the documents that had been forwarded to the tehsildar included a lease deed dating to 1970 that had been stamped by the metropolitan magistrate,” Tiwari said.

He added, “After consulting a few people, I found out that Mumbai only had a Presidency Magistrate in 1970. Only on April 1, 1974, after changes were made to the Criminal Procedure Code, was the post of a metropolitan magistrate created. This obviously meant that the lease deed had not been prepared in 1970, as claimed by the complainant. I then approached a local court, which ruled that the documents were forged and that an FIR should be registered in the matter.”

He further said, “I have been working hard since 2012 and finally my hard work has paid off. I have also filed other cases against the trio for similar land grabbing,” he said.

An officer from Borivali police station confirmed that they have registered an FIR under sections 467 (forgery of valuable security) and 474 (having forged document and intending to use it as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code.

“Based on court directions the FIR has been registered. We have recorded the statement of the complainant and investigations have begun in the matter. We are also checking if there are any others persons who have been duped in a similar manner,” said an officer from the Borivali police station.