The original owners of the land, who have alleged that the land was sold fraudulently and without their consent to a third party in 1961, have initiated legal proceedings to get the land back.
Pune-based developer Sanjay Kakade Infrastructure Pvt Ltd secured seven acres of prime land at Bhandup for Rs41.25 crore against its market price of Rs140 crore.
The original owners of the land, who have alleged that the land was sold fraudulently and without their consent to a third party in 1961, have initiated legal proceedings to get the land back. Kakade bought the land from the Indian Bank that auctioned it after the 1961 ‘buyer’ defaulted on a loan he took against it. There are allegations that Kakade wrested the land through a preferential bid made possible by benevolent bank officials.
The name of the Sakhare family, original owners of the land, still appears in the official extract of 7/12 (a record of land ownership in revenue records) at the Mulund Tehsil office.
The family alleges that a section of the family sold the land to Sohal Engineering Works in 1961 after forging documents.
Advocate Prashant Bhat, pursuing this case on behalf of the Sakhare family, alleges that the sub-registrar was hand-in-glove with the buyers and the errant Sakhare siblings.
“How can anyone who is not the owner of the land sell it? And after that, the sale was registered without proper verification of land title record or consent of the original owner. This exposes our fraudulent land buying and selling procedures,” Bhat said.
Government officials at the Mulund Tehsil office told DNA that as per their records ‘Shivling Sakhare’ is the owner of this Bhandup plot. DNA has a copy of the records (the 7/12 extract).
A Tehsil officer, requesting not to be named, said he was aware that Kakade Infrastructure has erected a board at the site recently.
“This controversial matter can only be resolved by the courts after verifying the various documents including conveyance deed, registration papers and the 7/12 extract.”
Advocate Bhat has alleged that the role of government-owned Indian Bank is not above suspicion either. Sohal Engineering Works’ promoter Dharamsingh Harnamsingh Sohal mortgaged the land with the Peddar Road branch of the bank for a Rs 56-lakh industrial loan. “When he defaulted on repayment, the property was auctioned by the bank’s Debt Recovery Tribunal in 2008 without ascertaining its proper market value,” he said. “Even at a conservative price of Rs20 crore per acre, its minimum value would have been Rs140 crore.”
“This raises doubts about the credibility of the bank officials and their auction procedure. The deal clearly shows that Kakade was favoured out of turn by Indian Bank officials, without inviting competitive bids from other developers,” said a leading city builder, adding that this is an obvious case of an influential developer using his political and financial muscle to corner prime land at a low rate and raking in the profits once the controversy clears.
In fact, bank officials seemed to be in a hurry to hand over the land to Kakade since they did so before they received the total bid amount from him. “It seems that Indian Bank officials also participated in the said conspiracy of forging of the deeds to comply with the collateral security formalities,” Bhat claimed.
Indian Bank officials S Deo (chief debt recovery tribunal officer) and Vipin Malhotra (zonal manager) refused to comment. When the bank’s CMD T M Bhasin was contacted for his comments, his office said that he would also not like to comment since the case is sub-judice.
Repeated calls and SMSs to Sanjay Kakade seeking his response went unanswered.
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