3 min readVadodaraDec 9, 2024 10:39 PM IST
First published on: Dec 9, 2024 at 10:38 PM IST
A magistrate court in Anand district on Monday remanded a 44-year-old man to three days in police custody for allegedly manipulating land record documents of farmers to secure loans from Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFC) by using fake stamps and forged letter heads of 25 gram panchayats, police said.
The Petlad town police station, which is investigating the case, also arrested another man for allegedly assisting the accused, Rishi Patel, in creating the fake stamps. The police said Hiten alias Situ Shah from Petlad allegedly installed a stamp-making machine at Patel’s residence without verifying the purpose.
The police busted the alleged racket, of forging land records to make farmers eligible for loans by way of mortgage of property, based on an input received about a fortnight ago.
Peltad Deputy Superintendent of Police Pramod Diyora told The Indian Express, “We had been keeping a watch on him (Patel) for the last 15 days after receiving information that there was a person who was helping farmers, whose lands were located outside the jurisdiction of the gram panchayat, secure loans by way of manipulated documents to show the address of the property as within the gram panchayat limits… We conducted a recce and finally arrested him on Sunday.”
Diyora said Patel had previously worked in three financial institutions as a field officer and was aware about the procedure for eligibility for loans. The police have also recovered a machine worth Rs 15,000 allegedly used for making fake stamps as well as blank forged letterheads of various gram panchayats.
Diyora said, “He had created stamps and letter heads of about 25 gram panchayats in Anand district and so far, got loans cleared for 35 farmers. The investigation till now has revealed that the farmers had no idea he was forging the documents to manipulate their address…”
Patel, Diyora said, would allegedly forge land records to show the address of the land owned by the applicant farmer as belonging to the gram panchayat. He would also forge letters, stamps and signatures of the Talati to certify the address, Diyora added.
“He received Rs 1,500 to 2,000 per loan cleared. The minimum loan amounts taken from NBFC are between Rs 10,000 and Rs 35,000 and upwards. The NBFCs do not consider as eligible the farmers whose lands are outside gram panchayat limits. The accused also defrauded the institutions as the mortgaged lands technically do not exist,” the DySP said.
The police busted the alleged racket, of forging land records to make farmers eligible for loans by way of mortgage of property, based on an input received about a fortnight ago. 
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