Four govt officials, colonel, doctor among 20 booked for making dead man ‘alive’ on paper to sell property

Four senior Haryana government officials, an army colonel, and his doctor wife were among at least 20 individuals booked for their alleged involvement in forging papers to show a deceased man as alive so as to sell his property valued at ₹10 crore (at current market rates), police said on Wednesday

Senior officers said the plot measuring a little more than 500 square metres is in Sector-23A was allotted to Sunil Kumar by the erstwhile Haryana Urban Development Authority (now Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran) on November 29, 2007.

Kumar, who was a resident of Sarita Vihar in Delhi at that time, later died at his native place in Punjab’s Fazilka on July 15, 2010.

It was more than five years after his death, that the plan to grab and sell his plot was executed, said police. For that, an imposter posed as the dead man, and an account in the name of the deceased was opened with a private bank in Sector 49 using forged identity documents.Later, a forged conveyance deed was prepared to sell the plot to the colonel and his wife from Janakpuri for ₹2.4 crore on April 27, 2016, investigators said.

They said Kumar’s son Dharmavir Kumar (46) submitted a complaint with the Gurugram police commissioner’s office on May 24 this year after he came to know about the forgery in August 2021 when he visited the plot but found a hospital being built on it. When no action was taken, he moved the court seeking an FIR and probe into the matter.

Finally, on the orders of a city court, an FIR was registered against 20 persons, including the four senior government officials of whom three are from the Haryana civil services, colonel and his wife, besides stamp vendors, erstwhile Huda staff and the private bank’s manager under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code at Sector 14 police station on Tuesday.

The complainant has alleged that the prime suspects, a father and son, are his close relatives.He alleged that the duo were involved in selling several plots of deceased owners by forging documents. He said they got a fake driving licence prepared in his deceased father’s name from Panchkula, but the photograph was of a private guard working for them.

“They duo later got the guard, impersonating my father, to open an account in the name of “Sunil Kumar” at a private bank in Sector 49. The suspects then prepared a forged conveyance deed dated April 1, 2016, using the imposter to show as if my father had gifted the deed to them,” Dharmavir alleged.

“The deed had signatures of two Huda staff as witnesses. On April 27, 2016, the plot was sold to the couple from Janakpuri in Delhi for ₹2.4 crore. Money was transferred into the imposter’s account,” he alleged.

Investigators said the suspects connived with the branch manager to get a certificate addressed to Huda that the signature on the actual allotment letter matched that of the imposter. Senior officials in Huda, without verifying signatures and photographs, gave permission for the sale after approving the conveyance deed, investigators said, quoting Dharmavir’s allegations.

Subhash Boken, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said they have registered the FIR. “We will gather records from the court, complainant and government offices after which things will become clear and necessary action will be taken,” he said.