Haryana officer held for selling dead man’s Gurugram plot for ₹3.4 crore

Police say forged allotment papers were used to sell a Sector-54 property in 2021; Economic Offences Wing arrested the accused from Zirakpur.

A deputy excise and taxation commissioner of the Haryana government was arrested in Zirakpur in Punjab on Tuesday for allegedly selling a dead man’s property in Gurugram’s Sector-54 for ₹3.4 crore by forging documents, police said.

Plot owner died in 2013. Probe found forged conveyance deed and alleged collusion with a real estate firm official and an associate. (HT)

The accused was identified as Saroj Devi, 50, a resident of Sector 55 in Gurugram, police said. She joined government service in 2004 and was recently transferred to Narnaul in Mahendragarh district from Bahadurgarh in Jhajjar, they added.

According to police, the plot originally belonged to Anurag Birla, who had purchased it from a real estate firm for ₹18.21 lakh and received an allotment letter in 2004 followed by a possession letter in 2005. Birla died in 2013. As his children were settled abroad, the ownership transfer could not be pursued at the time, they added.

Police said Birla’s son, Rishabh Birla, later attempted to transfer the plot in the name of his mother, Sikha Birla, but failed to follow up on the matter. In 2023, Rishabh was notified of construction activity on the plot and approached the real estate firm, which informed him that the property had been sold to Neena Chawla for ₹3.4 crore through a conveyance deed dated July 26, 2021.

Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said Rishabh filed a complaint, following which a case of cheating and forgery was registered at Sector-53 police station on February 16, 2024, and the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) initiated an investigation. “EOW found that the deputy commissioner got to know about the plot and had connived with Sutikshan Saxena, now deceased, affiliated to a real estate firm, to prepare a forged allotment letter on the basis of which she got the conveyance deed prepared in the name of her and an associate, Raj Bala, to sell it fraudulently,” Turan said.

Police said Saroj Devi confessed to receiving ₹1.7 crore from the deal, while the remaining amount was shared between Raj Bala and Saxena. The investigation against Bala is ongoing, and she will be arrested soon, police said.