Mundhwa land deal: Sub-registrar who registered the sale deed between Tejwani and Parth Pawar’s partner arrested

The FIR under provisions of cheating and criminal breach of trust was filed against Digvijay Patil who is Parth Pawar’s partner in the firm, Sheetal Tejwani, a Pune resident who had power of attorney on behalf of the original land owners and Taru (58), the now-suspended sub-registrar of the Haveli Number 4 sub registrar office who registered the sale deal on May 20.

“We arrested Ravindra Balkrushna Taru on Sunday from his home in Bhor. He will be produced before a court on Monday. The arrest has been done after our probe established his role in the case and the arrest has become necessary for further investigation. We have applied for a production warrant of Tejwani to the court in Pune. Once her custody of Pune city police ends, we will get her custody,” said an officer from Pimpri Chinchwad police who is part of the probe.

It is alleged that the firm Amadea Enterprises LLP in which Parth Pawar and Digvijay Patil are partners, purchased 40 acres of land in prime Mundhwa area of Pune, which was categorised as Mahar watan land. The term refers to the hereditary landholding system where the Mahars, a Scheduled Caste community, were forced to provide labour for village administration and the land was given to them as watan which means a land grant. The land parcel has been leased to the Botanical Survey of India.

As per the rules, such watan lands cannot be sold without prior approval from the state government. It has been alleged it was sold to the company at a mere Rs 300 crore along with a waiver of stamp duty when the actual market value of the land was more than five times this amount. Based on the complaint filed by officials from the IGR, an FIR was registered on November 6 at Bavdhan police station under Pimpri Chinchwad police as the registration of land deal took place at sub-registrar office ‘Haveli Number 4’ in its jurisdiction.

Meanwhile the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune city police—which is investigating a separate FIR in connection with irregularities in Mundhwa land deal—on December 3 arrested Tejwani (44), who held the power of attorney for 272 watandars of Mahar watan land in Mundhwa for its sale to Amadea Enterprises LLP. Tejwani is in the custody of Pune city police till December 11.

Pune city police have said they are probing whether Tejwani herself accepted Rs 300 crore amount of the deal and in what way. Police have also told the court that the original 272 watandars had not received any money from the transaction of the controversial deal. Pune police probe has also revealed that Tejwani had made several unsuccessful attempts starting from 2013 to seek regrant of the land parcel leased to the Botanical Survey of India. Probe has also revealed that in spite of failed attempts, in November 2020, Tejwani allegedly filed an application to the Additional Collector, Pune stating the said land had been regranted to its original watandars, when no such order had been passed by any authority.