Mohammad Yusuf Trust accused of forgery

Allegedly used backdated agreements to sell 80-acre plot in Panvel

A case has been filed against the chairman of Mohammad Yusuf Trust on charges of forging backdated agreements and selling portions of a 80-acre plot in Panvel.

Vikram Bhange, an official of Regal Habitat Pvt Ltd, filed the complaint against Haroon Aleem Yusuf at Nhava Sheva police station on December 3. He said Abdul Patel, an official of the trust, entered into a lease agreement with Regal Habitat in 1998. But in 2007, Bhupendra Shah, a developer from Sanpada, said he bought the land for ₹4 lakh in 1995.

Mr. Bhange said, “When we studied the agreements and other documents, we learnt that the chairman of the trust, Mr. Yusuf, had made a conveyance deed with Mr. Shah using backdated papers of 1995.”

Mr. Bhange said Mr. Shah secured a farmer’s certificate to sign the conveyance deed. He said, “Mr. Shah got the certificate to show that he owned land in Latur. But we found the signatures and photos of Mr. Shah were different in the documents produced to get the certificate.”

Same address

Vagish Mishra, the advocate of Mr. Bhange, said, “Ramesh Bhalerao, the talathi of Karjat, posed as a witness to help Mr. Shah secure the farmer’s certificate. The addresses of Mr. Bhalerao and Mr. Shah mentioned in the documents were of the same place in Latur.”

Mr. Bhange alleged that Mr. Yusuf also sold a portion of the 80-acre land to Furnscape properties in 1995 by forging backdated agreements. Mr. Bhange said, “The land costs ₹500.50 crore now. The documents were forged to benefit from the State’s proposal to provide 22.5% of developed land as compensation for all the project affected persons impacted by the ongoing CIDCO projects. Mr. Shah has already started the procedure for claiming the compensation from CIDCO.”

Senior police inspector Chetan Kakde said, “We are verifying all the documents and claims. We have recorded the statements of a few of the accused, including Mr. Bhalerao. We are also verifying the identity of Mr. Shah as the documents have different photographs.” The list of accused include Mr. Shah, Mr. Bhalerao, Shailesh Jadhav, Suresh Shedge and Kiran Dande, Baaj Khan of Furnscape properties.