Who’s the owner of SSP bungalow in Moradabad? SIT to find out
Divisional commissioner constituted the SIT to investigate the matter suspecting that two brothers, who had claimed ownership of the property and were procuring monthly rent from the police department for many years, had fraudulently showed themselves the real owners
LUCKNOW A four-member special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe into the ownership of the SSP bungalow in Moradabad, for which the police department has been paying rent for the past 19 years, said officials.
Moradabad divisional commissioner (DC) Aunjaneya Kumar Singh had constituted the SIT on August 2 to investigate the matter suspecting that two brothers, who had claimed ownership of the property and were procuring monthly rent from the police department for many years, had fraudulently showed themselves the real owners.
The SIT comprises two officials each from the land revenue department and the municipal corporation. Further action will be decided as per the findings of the team, he said.
A Moradabad police official said two brothers, Sudhir Kumar Dhawan and Sunil Kumar Dhawan, claimed ownership of the SSP bungalow, which is spread across 6,000 sq ft, and filed a civil suit in a local court in 2003 claiming themselves as the real owners of the property.
“The property is registered as an ‘IPS house’ in land revenue and municipal corporation records for over nine decades since the pre-Independence period,” said a senior police official, adding, “apparently due to lack of communication, carelessness or casual approach of the then authorities, the court issued ex-parte directions to pay rent of the property and fixed the amount at ₹5,000 per month.”
He said the police paid rent for around 12 years between 2007 and 2019 until another civil suit was filed in 2019 to revise the rent, after which it was revised to ₹51,000 per month.
The official explained that an ex-parte decision is one decided by a court without requiring all of the parties to the dispute to be present.
“Recently, Hemraj Meena, who was Moradabad SSP till June 25 before getting transferred as SP Azamgarh, crosschecked the ownership records and registered an FIR against the two brothers and other unidentified people for fraudulently showing themselves as real owners and procuring rent to cause loss to the state exchequer,” said the the divisional commissioner.
He added “Meena discussed the issue with senior authorities and filed a case seeking records from the claimants of the property and stopped paying rent for the past four months now.” The role of some previous police authorities would also come under the scanner, if the allegation of forged ownership is established as they accepted becoming tenants without challenging the ownership of the property before court, added the official.
Moradabad police officials said the case was lodged against two brothers, Sudhir Kumar Dhawan and Sunil Kumar Dhawan, who claimed themselves as the property’s real owners, as well as others at the Civil Lines police station on April 20, 2024. The FIR was lodged by Moradabad Reserve Police Lines inspector Rakam Singh under IPC sections 420 for cheating, 467 for forging documents to claim ownership of government property, 468 for using forged documents for cheating, 471 for using forged documents as genuine as well as the siphoning of government funds by procuring rent on the basis of forged ownership of property and 120-B for criminal conspiracy.