Gurgaon Police await court order to act against builders

The order had been issued after a complaint was registered by Ramesh Kumar, an RTI activist, alleging that employees of the registrar office had colluded with multiple builders to cause the Haryana government a loss of Rs 5 crore.

The complainant had submitted that the accused persons had executed and registered 53 sale deeds, in which the stamp duty had been reduced from 7% to 5% by tampering with the computer program to show the land under sale deeds to be outside of the Municipal Corporation limits, even when it fell within its boundaries.

Kumar submitted a complaint to the Manesar police station, following which the matter was investigated in 2016 by the then DCP. The latter had then submitted a report to the commissioner of police on June 18, 2016, stating that the illegal acts had been committed by the state government officers along with the builders.

The commissioner of police, on July 27, 2016, had written to the director, State Vigilance Bureau, Panchkula, about the offences related to cheating, forgery and corrupt practices by government officers. On October 14, 2016, the director forwarded the case to the chief secretary of the Haryana government, seeking permission to investigate the allegations. This, however, was not granted.

The complaint was instead sent to the additional chief secretary (revenue), Haryana, on December 13, 2016, who in turn forwarded the matter to the deputy commissioner of Gurgaon on January 23, 2017. The case was investigated by the additional deputy commissioner, Gurgaon, whose report had stated that the main reason for charging 2% less stamp duties was “non-updation of Sihi village, where the land is located….”

Saturday’s court order stated: “The said report appears to be prepared with manipulation and deliberately to hide and save the wrongdoers.”