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Chandigarh house grab case: Former journalist, two others get bail
Former vernacular journalist Sanjeev Mahajan, Khalendra Singh Kadyan and Gurpreet Singh were granted bail by the high court in the Sector-37 property grab case on Thursday
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday granted bail to three accused, including former vernacular journalist Sanjeev Mahajan, in the Sector-37 property grab case.
Besides, Sanjeev, the two other accused to get bail are Khalendra Singh Kadyan and Gurpreet Singh. Seven other accused in the case have also secured bail.
A total of 12 people were named as accused in the case. However, one of them, Surjit Singh, a bouncer, has since died. They are accused of kidnapping and torturing Rahul Mehta, 48, the only surviving heir of his family, in April 2017 to secure the general power of attorney (GPA) of his 338 square yards house and selling it for ₹2.9 crore in March 2019.
Apart from the four accused named above, the other seven are realtor Manish Gupta, his brother Saurab Gupta (who bought the house); suspended Chandigarh Police inspector Rajdeep Singh; Satpal Dagar, brother of a UT DSP; liquor baron Arvind Singla; and Ashok Arora, Shekhar and Daljit Singh, who purportedly acted as witnesses in the sale of the house. Gurpreet had impersonated Rahul as the property owner to execute the sale.
The case had hit headlines in March 2021, when the Chandigarh Police started arresting the accused. Sanjeev and Manish were the first to be arrested in the case on March 2, 2021, followed by Satpal on March 4 and inspector Rajdeep on March 12.
Arvind and Khalendra were booked as the property’s GPA was transferred to their names. After the GPA’s transfer, Rahul was abandoned at a stud farm in Gujarat in June 2017, before being shifted from one charitable home to another in Maharashtra, Delhi and Rajasthan, where he was finally traced. He is now in police protection.
Two months after the FIR, the special investigating team (SIT) of the Chandigarh Police had submitted seven separate challans against the accused in April 2021 and the charges were framed in January this year. The trial is underway with 78 listed witnesses, including the victim, Rahul Mehta, and his cousin Rajiv, who is settled in the UK.
