Gurgaon Court Sentences Man to Jail for Illegal Sale of NRI’s Property

The accused had sold the NRI’s house for Rs 2 crore using forged papers and fake bank account.

The Gurugram district court sentenced a man to a six-year jail term for selling a US-based NRI’s property using fake documents. The accused, identified as Rajesh Kumar, was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs 15,000.

Kumar, a resident of Gurugram, had played a role in the opening of a fake bank account by giving wrong identity to encash the cheque he got after selling the property for Rs 2 crore. Along with him, two more people — Vivek Rana and Vijay Madan — were named as the accused in the case. While Rana is a proclaimed offender since December 2015, Madan remains untraceable to the police. Kumar was arrested in March 2015 and faced trial.

In the order pronounced by Judicial magistrate first class Ravish Kaushik, Kumar was held guilty of cheating by personation, criminal conspiracy, and preparing forged documents. The court observed that he committed financial fraud to cheat bank officials, the property’s original owner and the buyer, by helping in the opening of the fake bank account in which Rs 2 crore was deposited.

Illegal Sale of Property

The case came to light in 2012 when Saleem Ahmad Malik, who lives in the United States, filed a police complaint saying that their house situated in Block C of Palam Vihar was illegally occupied by some unknown persons. Malik was informed by a family friend that their house appeared occupied by some people.

The house belongs to Malik’s late father, Zafar Ahmad Malik, who was also a resident of the US. In his complaint, Malik pointed out that after his father’s death, the rightful legal owner of the property was his mother, Sally Malik, who is also a US citizen.

The trial for the case started in 2014. It was found during the investigation that Madan has obtained a fake power of attorney from Zafar Ahmad and used it to sell the property to Delhi resident Rajiv Kumar for Rs 2 crore. Rana was a witness during the time of the registry.

Rana then opened a bank account in the name of Zafar Ahmad using fake identity proof and PAN card. Rajesh Kumar identified Rana as Zafar Ahmad at the time of opening the bank account. He was paid Rs 39.50 lakh by Rana for this.

The quantum of the sentence was announced by Abhishek Phutela, chief judicial magistrate, Gurgaon, as the severity of punishment needed a higher court to pass the sentence.

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