Vadodara property ‘not handed over to buyer’, two from Mumbai held on land-grabbing charges

According to the FIR lodged at the DCB police station, despite “finalising a sale deed” with Desai’s firm, Zebar Realty, and “handing over the management of the school” to the real-estate firm for a price of Rs 18 crore, the accused allegedly “did not hand over a peaceful possession” of the property to the complainant.

The FIR states that the “Intention of Sale” (Banakhat) was registered on July 15, 2022 after the accused allegedly showed the complainant a copy of the decision of the Board of the company to “discontinue and withdraw the lease agreement with Meera Education Trust”, and hand over the land as well as the school management to Zebar Realty. However, despite the sale deed being registered on February 28, 2023, the Tree House Education And Accessories Limited and Meera Education Trust, allegedly “in connivance with each other, continued to hold illegal possession of the property”, the FIR adds.

The accused booked in the case have been identified as Rajesh Bhatia, Dipen Shah, Ramani, Jugal Shah, Divya Padhiyar, Nidhi Busa, Navinkumar Bhandarde, Guddi Chandrikaprasad Bajpai, Girdharilal Bhatia, Faizan Qureshi, R Venkat Lakshmi, Minal Patel, and Abhishek Rajesh Bhatia.

All the accused have been booked under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita’s (BNS) Section 316(2) (criminal breach of peace), 316 (4) (criminal breach of trust by a person entrusted with a property), 318(3) (cheating with the knowledge of causing wrongful loss to a person whose interest is in the transaction), [61(2)(a)](Criminal conspiracy to commit offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment of two years and more) as well as The Gujarat Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2020.