Slain billionaire realtor Deepak Bhardwaj and his son Nitish, who has been arrested for allegedly hiring mercenaries to eliminate his father, have been named besides several others in a case registered by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police for allegedly committing forgery and fraudulently grabbing two-acre agricultural land owned by a U.S.-based elderly doctor.
The real-estate magnate was gunned down by hired killers at a Rajokri farmhouse on March 26. In a complaint lodged with the EOW, 70-year-old K.K. Rattan alleged that he was cheated by late Bhardwaj, his wife and sons Nitish and Hitesh besides six others and the directors of a firm named JJV Marketing. The accused persons had used a forged power of attorney prepared on behalf of the complainant to show the sale of his property to the company which is suspected to be a front of Deepak Bhardwaj.
Dr. Rattan in his complaint disclosed that he had purchased the land at Samalkha village in Mehrauli in 1984-85 through a broker named J.S. Bhullar. He was then in the United States. Around the same time, one of his U.S.-based friends bought agricultural land in the same locality. As alleged, the person introduced Dr. Rattan to Deepak Bhardwaj stating that the latter took care of his property. The realtor allegedly offered to keep a watch on Dr. Rattan’s property as well on a non-remunerative basis. The property owner gave his consent.
When Dr. Rattan’s friend recently moved back to India, he found that Dr. Rattan’s property had been grabbed. In the meantime, Mr. Bhardwaj was killed.
“The involvement of Deepak Bhardwaj and his family in the entire episode would be evident from the fact that in 1988, one Raman Sood had filed a suit in the Delhi High Court claiming specific performance and right in the subject property. The suit in the High Court was filed claiming that the complainant (Dr. Rattan) had executed a purported General Power of Attorney (GPA) in May 1987 at Chandigarh in favour of J.S. Bhullar,” alleged the complainant, adding that Bhullar – a friend of Bhardwaj – had got the paper forged.
The complainant alleged that Bhullar had sold the property to Raman Sood despite an interlocutory injunction on its sale/transfer. “The High Court later observed that the GPA was forged.”
Dr. Rattan had hired a lawyer through Deepak Bhardwaj to present his case in the matter and also signed a written statement dated July 3, 1995, prepared by the latter for the purpose. The complainant alleged that he had signed the last page of the written statement wherein it was no where stated that he had sold his property. After Bhardwaj’s murder, he took charge of the case and hired a new lawyer who discovered that all pages, except the last one bearing Dr. Rattan’s signature, in his written statement had been tampered with. The property, in that document, was shown to have been sold to JJV Marketing in August 1993. The sale deed was executed in Mumbai, allegedly in breach of court injunction. Further enquiries by Dr. Rattan revealed that the sale deed had been executed by one Ramesh, an alleged accomplice of Deepak Bhardwaj, who posed as a representative of the complainant’s father. The sub power of attorney papers was also used fraudulently by the accused persons.
