Noida authority registers FIR against two officials for land compensation fraud

NOIDA: The Noida Authority has filed a case against two of its officials for allegedly orchestrating a scam by conniving with a compensation beneficiary to have the money released by manipulating documents.

Noida Authority officials said now-suspended assistant legal officer Virendra Singh Nagar and legal officer Dinesh Kumar Singh were found to be involved. After complaints were received, the Noida Authority held an internal inquiry and filed the complaint based on its findings.

There are multiple cases under investigation. The FIR was recommended by the legal department of the Noida Authority after the duo’s alleged involvement was established in one of the cases. The beneficiary, Ramvati, was also booked in the case filed under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 & 468 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine any document known to be forged), 120B (conspiracy) and sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

According to the complaint filed by legal officer Sushil Bhati, in 1982, the revenue department acquired land belonging to Fundan, a resident of Gejha Tilaptabad, after which Fundan approached a local court against the quantum of compensation. While the Surajpur court disposed of the case in 1993, Fundan’s only daughter Ramvati approached the Allahabad high court against the order in 2015.

Officials said the high court disposed of the case but Ramvati allegedly submitted an application to the Noida Authority CEO, claiming her compensation was “pending”. The application was forwarded to Nagar, who allegedly tampered with documents to also reflect the compensation status as “pending”.

The documents were forwarded to legal adviser Singh and the compensation was cleared. According to the Noida Authority complaint that was sent to Sector 20 police two months ago, the Authority suffered a total loss of Rs 12 crore in this particular case. Speaking to TOI, Noida Authority CEO Ritu Maheshwari said at least seven-eight cases were found in which documents were manipulated and an FIR was recommended in one of them.

“The fraud was mainly orchestrated by Nagar who was suspended after the departmental inquiry. Dinesh was the forwarding authority and it had been recommended that his role be probed too, but the main involvement was of Nagar. The FIR was recommended in one of the cases where inquiry was completed and involvement established,” she said, adding more FIRs could follow depending on the outcome of inquiries in the other cases. She added, “The total loss suffered by the Authority in the cases being investigated is estimated to be around Rs 80-100 crore.”

ACP-I Ankita Sharma said that since the two officials were working for a government agency, police sought opinion from the special prosecution officer (SPO) on whether a legal sanction from the appointing authority was required before lodging an FIR. “The SPO opined sanction could be taken within three months of lodging of FIR. We are investigating the exact amount of the benefits reaped by the accused in the case,” she said.