Buyer beware: Duping of JNU professors is latest example of land pooling fraud

The targets of such scams mostly include government officers or bureaucrats who have the potential to invest in such housing schemes, a police officer said.

The complainants claimed that they lost crores of rupees after investing in the scheme. (Representational/File)

3 min readNew DelhiJan 28, 2023 09:15 AM IST First published on: Jan 27, 2023 at 04:14 PM IST

Days after a case was lodged by the Delhi Police on the complaint of several JNU professors who have allegedly been duped of crores by a former employee of the university on the pretext of providing them flats, senior officers said that despite advertisements asking persons to not fall for such fraud schemes, such cases still persist.

A senior officer from the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police said: “There are two types of land pooling scams — one where a person known to the victim carries out the fraud and one where the accused is unknown. The one including a known person is reported the most. Fraud cases involving land pooling scams spiked after it was notified for the second time in 2018 but it has considerably reduced in recent years.”

The officer said that the Delhi Police had last month carried out a campaign on social media and put out advertisements regarding such frauds. “The targets of such scams mostly include government officers or bureaucrats who have the potential to invest in such housing schemes… the fraud revolves around the trust factor and the closest the victim is to the accused, the easier it becomes for the latter to cheat the victim and convince him to invest in the scheme. Victims often don’t verify the credentials of the accused person or his firm or society before investing into a scheme,” another officer said.

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Earlier this month, a case was lodged against one Dr P D Gaikwad, President of the Noble Socio-Scientific Welfare Organisation (NSSWO) and also a former employee of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). According to the FIR in the case, he formed NSSWO in 2015 on the pretext of providing affordable housing in the Dwarka-Najafgarh area under the DDA’s Land Pooling Policy of 2021.

The FIR read: “He approached professors of JNU, IIT and scientists of nearby institutes… the 10 complainants trusted him as he was a former employee of the university… after 7 years, he did not deliver anything even after taking timely installments. It appears now that NSSWO is fake and created for cheating. He promised us to deliver the property within three years and collected installments.”

The FIR further stated that after collecting the amount from all members, he allegedly stopped communicating with them and blocked their numbers. The complainants claimed that they lost crores of rupees after investing in the scheme, the FIR added.

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Senior police officials privy to the probe said they are collecting the relevant documents pertaining to the investigation and are verifying the allegations.

A senior DDA official said that while initially meant to provide well-planned houses across Delhi-NCR, “the scheme can easily be manipulated by several individuals, builders and promoters alike by forming a fraudulent firm and inviting people to invest in a fake land”.

Vijay Shankar Patel, PRO, DDA, said: “Intensive campaigns are carried out through media, informing people to not fall for such frauds and only seek information regarding any land pooling scheme from the official website of DDA.”