The city police have retrieved land worth ₹100 crore located in a prime locality from suspected land grabbers and are taking steps to return it to the original owners.
Lalitha Bhandari and her three daughters bought land measuring 37.5 grounds located adjacent to the sea in Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, from Jamuna and Panchanathan Chetti in 1960.
The vendors executed a sale deed and registration deed in favour of the buyers. Ms. Bhandari and her daughters settled in Australia after obtaining citizenship.
Noticing that the property remained unclaimed for long, a few persons hatched a criminal conspiracy to grab the land. They forged some documents to make it appear that Vimala Bhandari, one of Lalitha Bhandari’s daughters, was the sole survivor of the family and also executed a power of attorney document in her name in favour of a man named Parathasarathi. The gang then attempted to sell the land using the power of attorney.
Ms. Lalitha Bhandari and her family came to know of this transaction and one of her daughters, Saraswathi Bhandari, came down to Chennai and lodged a complaint with the Police Commissioner in 2016 seeking the retrieval of the land.
Based on the complaint, the Central Crime Branch last June arrested two persons — Pappathi Ammal and Kuriakose Mathew — who were engaged by the gang for impersonation during the registration of the power of attorney.
It turned out that Pappathi Ammal had posed as Vimala Bhandari and Mathew as Parathasarathi.
The case was expedited and the main suspects — R. Rajendra Mal, 60, of Thiruporur, and P. Seenu, 50, of Shanmugapuram, were arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajendra Kumar told The Hindu , “We will write a letter to the Department of Registration to annul the document which was registered in a fraudulent manner.”
