Nashik city police arrest naib tehsildar in connection with housing scam

During our ongoing investigations, we have found that Patil had approved 31 documents that were forged by some developers and landowners to artificially split land parcels to avoid complying with the state government’s mandatory housing policy, says official

The crime branch of the Nashik city police on Sunday arrested a naib tehsildar, Nitin Patil, for his alleged involvement in the housing scam in Nashik city.

A local court remanded him to police custody till May 6. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

A local court remanded him to police custody till May 6.

“During our ongoing investigations, we have found that Patil had approved 31 documents that were forged by some developers and landowners to artificially split land parcels to avoid complying with the state government’s mandatory housing policy,” said police officials.

These developers and landowners had allegedly connived with unidentified persons to forge documents to split land parcels over 4,000 square meters into small land parcels.

This was done to evade the mandatory 20% reservation of dwellings for Maharashtra Housing and Area Development (Mhada) that the latter is supposed to allot to the economically weaker section (EWS) beneficiaries for housing projects under the state govt’s housing policy of 2013.

The Sarkarwada police last month had registered an FIR under different sections of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) for cheating, forgery, creating false documents, etc., against several developers and landowners in Nashik city, following a complaint by an official of the land records department.

The police had earlier arrested two developers of Nashik city after the registration of the FIR. Both were later granted bail by the court.

The state revenue minister, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, early this month had formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the Nashik divisional commissioner, Praveen Gedam, to probe the alleged irregularities of private land plots in Nashik city to deprive dwellings to the economically weaker sections of the society.

The minister has asked the SIT to probe to find out the number of projects where there have been irregularities, recommend the kind of action that the state govt must take against the unscrupulous officers involved in the scam, propose criminal action against land owners and developers involved in the scam and suggest measures to prevent such irregularities in future.