E-Paper
Paliwal Dairy owners booked in ₹2.2 crore land fraud case
The accused have been identified as Umashankar Paliwal, Suresh Paliwal – the owners of Paliwal Milk Products – and Pramod Patil, an estate agent. Umashankar is the father of Suresh.
Mumbai: Three people, including the father-son duo who own Paliwal Dairy, were booked for allegedly duping a medical shop owner of ₹2.23 crore under the pretext of a land deal in Palghar.
The accused have been identified as Umashankar Paliwal, Suresh Paliwal – the owners of Paliwal Milk Products – and Pramod Patil, an estate agent. Umashankar is the father of Suresh. Since 2017, the complainant, Jayantilal Gala was in talks to buy 60 guntas land in Palghar jointly with Umashankar, said a police officer from Vakola Police Station, adding, “Gala was introduced to Pramod, who quoted that the price of the land was ₹4.5 crore.”
However, Gala came to know that the actual price of the land was around ₹2 crore, added the officer.
“Having known Umashankar for more than fifteen years and not having much understanding of the administrative tasks required in transfers of land ownership, I trusted him completely. By December 2018, I gave him ₹2.23 crore in several instalments to pay for the land and towards registration of the agreements and other expenses,” Gala said in his police complaint.
In 2018, Gala started talking about building a farmhouse on the empty land when he first noticed Umashankar’s suspicious behaviour, said the police officer, adding, “When Gala tried to get Suresh to intervene and sort things out, he started avoiding the complainant. The previous owner of the land, meanwhile, sent a notice to pay her the remaining amount of ₹62 lakh of the total consideration of ₹2 crore, which further alerted Gala.”
The trio have been booked under sections 406 (breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code. “We are examining the documents that the two sides have submitted. Further actions will depend on our findings,” said the police officer.
