Gurugram: Man takes compensation for someone else’s land; held

The matter came before the court on January 25, 2025, during a hearing for other owners’ compensation claims.

The Crime Branch on Saturday arrested a 33-year-old man who had been on the run after allegedly posing as a landowner to secure ₹5.12 crore in compensation from a court for land acquired by the Haryana government in 2023 for the expansion of Southern Peripheral Road, police said on Monday

Gurugram: Man takes compensation for someone else’s land; held

Investigators said that the Gurugram police had announced a ₹5,000-reward on the suspect, identified as Narender Jonwal, a JJ Colony resident in Delhi. Jonwal was a key suspect in the case and carried out the fraud along with his five associates. The five had been arrested between July and August last year, while Jonwal continued to remain on the run, they added.

According to police, Jonwal and his associates impersonated the actual land owner, Brahm Prakash Yadav of Badshahpur, and hired a lawyer to exploit the procedural loopholes to fraudulently get ₹4.97 crore released as compensation and ₹15.19 lakh as interest in May 2023.

The matter came before the court on January 25, 2025, during a hearing for other owners’ compensation claims. The court found that an ineligible owner had been compensated, and an investigation was ordered. It also observed that the land compensation scam was suspected to be worth ₹100 crore.

A cheating and forgery case was soon registered at Shivaji Nagar police station.

Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said Jonwal got the bank demand draft issued from the court on two separate occasions in May 2023, and deposited them to a bank account in Nagpur opened fraudulently in the name of Brahm Prakash.

According to investigators, Jomwal’s associate Krishna Kumar (50), a resident of Mehrauli, had impersonated the land owner before court, while Tushar alias Kaku (21) of Jahangirpuri and Dinesh Kashyap alias Rathor (38) of Dwarka forged the owner’s identity documents to open a bank account in his name. The other two associates — Pankaj Kumar Kela alias Dharm (47) and Sushil Kumar Darda (48), both from Chhattisgarh — helped them in the process.

Police said Dinesh got ₹1.9 crore of the total proceeds, Sushil and Pankaj got a total of ₹25 lakh, Tushar got ₹9 lakh, while Jonwal got ₹1 crore. The remaining amount was distributed among Krishna and his associates, police said.

They added that Jonwal had been booked in another case of cheating and forgery registered in Gurugram.

Senior police officials privy to the case said the Gurugram land acquisition officer had transferred ₹518 crore of undisbursed compensation to acity court in March 2022.

The amount also included the compensation of owners like Brahm Prakash Yadav, who had opted to take the benefit of floor area ratio (FAR) or transfer of development rights (TDR) instead of monetary compensation. The compensation of such owners should have been reversed to the state government instead of submitting it to the court, a loophole which was later exploited by these suspects, officials said.