Ex-deputy collector,five others booked for ‘forgery’

Banaskantha police have registered a case of forgery,cheating and criminal breach of trust against six persons that include the then deputy collector and the then mamlatdar of Deesa. They have been accused of allocating more than 13 acres of a village land to certain persons of Deesa town under the Gujarat Agricultural Land Ceiling Act,while forging documents and without following statutory procedure. The then deputy collector has been identified as P K Hadula and the then mamlatdar as N S Gadhvi. The FIR was registered on the basis of a complaint by the chairman of Social Justice Committee of Sanath Gram Panchayat,Ishwar Parmar. Under the provisions of the Agricultural Land Ceiling Act,more than 13 acres of land of Sanath village was to be allocated to the locals by the revenue authorities and as per statutory provisions,people belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes were to be given preference in the allocation. However,the accused persons allegedly acted in connivance with each other and produced forged documents while forging signatures of certain persons who were not residing in Sanath or in its periphery of 8 km.