New FIR against Kiran Patel, this time for alleged fraud over sale of property

Kiran Patel has been booked under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 170 (personating a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code

AHMEDABAD: Kiran Patel, who was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir for posing as a senior official at the Prime Minister’s Office, was booked in a fresh case in connection with alleged fraud in a property worth ₹80 lakh in Ahmedabad’s Narol area.

Alleged conman Kiran Patel, who obtained government security by posing as a PMO official in Jammu and Kashmir, was brought to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on Saturday (ANI)

Patel has been booked under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 170 (personating a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code.

This is the sixth case against Kiran Patel in Gujarat. He is currently in police custody in connection with another case filed on April 15 for an alleged fraud of ₹3.51 lakh. A local court in Ahmedabad on Tuesday extended Patel’s police custody till April 21.

The latest FIR, filed on April 17 by the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch, relates to 2017 when the complainant Upendrasinh Chavda, 36, who runs the construction company Bhavani Builders, struck a deal with Kiran Patel to purchase a land parcel measuring 1,867 square metres in Narol.

HT has reviewed the FIR

Chavda first met Patel in 2016 at Sabarmati jail when he was visiting his friend Salim Khoja. After Khoja’s release on bail, Chavda met Patel again and the two stayed in touch.

In 2017, Patel initially asked Chavda for a loan and when he declined, he offered to sell his ancestral property to him. They visited the site in Narol where Chavda confirmed that Patel, proprietor of Vishal corporation, was the owner of a plot spread across 4,325 square metres. Patel and Chavda finalised a ₹80 lakh deal to buy 1,867 sqm land parcel.

Chavda complained that he paid the amount over a period of six months but the land wasn’t transferred to him.

He sent legal notice to Patel but didn’t get a response. Chavda claimed that he didn’t file a police complaint because their contractual with Patel was documented.

In February this year, Chavda said he got a call from Patel who allegedly told him: “Upendrasinh, do not worry, I am (with) PMO office, and I have got big responsibility and work’”.

When he inquired about the land deal, Patel told the complainant that he was in Kashmir and sent him photos and videos of him visiting various locations with police protection, on February 27.