Gadkari aides figure in benami transactions

A firm, of which MP Ajay Sancheti’s brother Abhay is director, financed 8 buyers in Adarsh

December 22, 2013 12:08 am | Updated November 16, 2021 11:05 pm IST - Nagpur:

The Commission of Inquiry on the Adarsh Housing Society has found 22 transactions to be benami, eight of the buyers having been financed by the San Finance Corporation, of which the BJP Rajya Sabha member Ajay Sancheti’s brother Abhay is a director. The Sanchetis are considered close aides of the former party president, Nitin Gadkari.

All 22 transactions are barred under the Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Act 1988, says the report, since tabled in the Maharashtra Assembly and already rejected by the Cabinet.

The entire consideration paid by five persons out of the eight for buying flats was provided by the Sanchetis’ company. “Loans given to them are without any security and although it is orally stated that interest was liable to be charged from them, there is no document to that effect.” None of the five persons has repaid any loan borrowed from the company, nor did it take action for recovery of the dues, says the report.

Among those to whom loans were given are Suresh Atram, who works as peon in the Sancheti company, and Sudhakar Madke, a driver there. Both were given Rs 59.5 lakh and Rs. 60 lakh respectively. Mr. Sancheti’s brother-in-law Rajesh Bora was also a beneficiary, having been allotted a flat adjacent to that of Madke.

Another purchaser is Mr. Abhay Sancheti’s son Paramveer, whose application, the commission said, was not scrutinised properly and he was ‘improperly declared as eligible’ for a flat.

Despite repeated attempts, Mr. Sancheti was unavailable for comment.

The report has revealed that two family members of Major General (retired) T.K. Kaul were involved in the benami transactions. Maj. Gen. Kaul already owns one flat in the society. His daughter and wife financed the purchase of two other flats. Maj. Gen. Kaul figures as an accused in the charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Adarsh case in the Bombay High Court.

Vishal Kedari, a vegetable vendor, has also been found to a benami purchaser for Parveen Nayyar and her husband, whom he used to visit for domestic work. The report pointed out that Kedari had not made any repayment of the loan he had taken from the couple and two others — Sunil Advani and Amit Thepadi. “The loans are interest-free and there is no security for repayment of loan. The mortgage deed is unregistered.”

In another instance, Amarshingh Waghmare, assistant supervisor with the Container Corporation of India (Nagpur), purchased a flat worth Rs. 80 lakh by raising money from one Irawati Parkar by way of security deposit while giving her the premises on rent. “Waghmare is only a benamidar and the real purchaser is Irawati Parkar,” says the report.

Dummy buyer

The former MLA, Mukundrao Mankar, is accused of buying a flat for Landscraper Realtors Private Limited as a dummy. The report says the loan transaction creates doubts that “require to be considered to ascertain whether Mankar was a bona fide purchaser or benamidar.”

Sharmila Barve, wife of IPS officer Sanjay Barve, is accused of buying a flat in the name of her father-in-law, S.V. Barve, 86, who, the report says, did not need to own a flat at his age. As both his son and daughter-in-law already own flats in Mumbai, they could not buy a flat in their name in the Adarsh society. In this background, the commission says, the real owner of the flat is Ms. Barve.

In another ‘not normal’ transaction, construction worker Uttam Gakhare raised money from Arundhati Upadhyay, who runs a Centre Point School in Nagpur, and from her husband. But in the absence of anything in writing about the loan and non-delivery of possession of a flat, “it cannot be positively concluded that the purchase is necessarily a benami transaction,” the report says.

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