Seven booked for cheating firm of over ₹1 crore , woman of ₹1.1 crore

GURUGRAM: Seven persons were booked for allegedly cheating a firm of more than ₹1 crore and a woman of ₹1.1 crore by mortgaging a house in Sector 8 and selling it on the basis of forged documents, police said Wednesday.

The matter came to light when Rakesh Kumar Sharma (57) and his wife Radha Sharma (55), saw a notice pasted on the main door of their newly purchased two-storey house in Ram Nagar on September 27, that there is a loan of ₹1,38,97,842 against the house pending payment and the property will be auctioned on October 28 if the debt is not cleared.

According to police, the notice was issued by a non-banking financial firm on September 23 and the couple, who earlier lived in Dhankot, saw it on the day on which they were about to perform rituals to start living on the property.

Police said the property was originally owned by a certain

Pawan Kumari, who had sold it to Rekha Devi (52) in 2018. Rekha then sold it to Radha and the registration of the property took place on July 28 this year, police said.

To purchase the property, Rakesh had paid ₹1.1 crore to Rekha’s husband, Shamsher Singh, in multiple bank transactions, police said.

After receiving the notice, Rakesh approached Shamsher, but the latter avoided answering questions, after which Radha submitted a written complaint at the office of Gurugram commissioner of police on October 10, police said.

A senior police officer said the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) carried out an inquiry, after which it surfaced that prima facie, the loan against the property was taken in 2015, when it was registered in the name of Pawan.

“Even in the absence of original deeds, which were with the financial firm that had disbursed the loan, the property was sold and transferred to Rekha in 2018. Rekha then sold it to Radha this year,” said the police officer.

After the EOW’s inquiry, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered based on Radha’s complaint, against seven suspects, including Rekha, Shamsher, Pawan and her husband Vinod Kumar, under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code at New Colony police station on Tuesday night, said police.

Rakesh said Shamsher showed him the original purchase deed but Pawan’s purchase deed was a certified copy. “When I enquired about the original, Shamsher said they have been misplaced. Afterwards, Shamsher lodged a ‘lost property report’ online,” alleged Rakesh.

Shamsher, however, said he had no information about any loan on the house. “I had never received any notice. My wife purchased the house from Pawan on the basis of a deed, which was not the original one. The previous owner had promised to give us the original deed later but we never got it,” he alleged.

On Pawan and her husband’s current whereabouts, Shamsher said, “I don’t know...They just vanished.” Rakesh also claimed the whereabouts of Pawan and her family are not known to him.

Inspector Dinkar Kumar, station house officer of New Colony police station, said the police will serve notice to the suspects to appear with property documents.

Even in the absence of original deeds, which were with the financial firm that had disbursed the loan, the property was sold to Rekha, who sold it to Radha. POLICE OFFICER