The Beed police on Friday lodged a case of cheating and forgery against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Dhananjay Munde and 14 other persons in connection with the ‘illicit’ purchase of a plot of land allegedly belonging to the government in Beed district.
An FIR under Sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 464 (false document) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was lodged against Mr. Munde and the others at the Bardapur police station.
The police action follows a June 11 order of the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court, directing an FIR to be registered against Mr. Munde, who is Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Maharashtra Legislative Council (MLC), within four days of the court order.
Mr. Munde has already moved the Supreme Court against the High Court order.
The court had passed the directive on a petition filed by Rajabhau Phad, who had accused the NCP leader of illegally purchasing land for his Jagmitra sugar factory in Beed district.
According to Mr. Phad’s petition, the disputed plot of land at Pus village in Beed’s Ambejogai tehsil belonged to the State government and was given to the Belkhandi Math in Beed as a ‘gift’ to its chief priest or mahant , Ranit Giri.
In 2012, Mr. Munde had purchased the 17-acre plot from Mr. Giri’s heirs by applying for non-agricultural status of the land.
The petitioner had challenged the purchase, stating that as the land originally belonged to the government, it could not be sold to anybody.
Stressing that the land for the Jagmitra Sugar Mills was purchased “in strict accordance to rules,” Mr. Munde has refuted the allegations against him, stating that “misleading information” was presented against him in the court.
He has alleged that Mr. Phad’s complaint against him smacked of “political vendetta.”
The NCP leader said that Mr. Phad, who is the son-in-law of scam-tainted businessman Ratnakar Gutte, was attempting to frame him as he had exposed the farm loan fraud allegedly committed by Mr. Gutte, a prominent sugar baron from the Marathwada region considered to be close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mr. Munde’s lawyers have said that there was no mention of the land belonging to the government at the time of the purchase in 2012.
This is not the first time the NCP leader has found himself in a soup over shadowy dealings.
In October 2013, the Beed District Central Co-operative Bank had lodged a complaint pertaining to fraudulent behaviour against Mr. Munde and 15 others at the Parli police station in Beed.
The BDCC had alleged Mr. Munde, as chairman and director of the Parli-based Jagmitra Co-operative Cotton Ginning and Pressing Mill, had taken loans from the bank amounting to ₹11.79 crore between 2003 and 2011 and had failed to repay them. Despite the lodging of an FIR and the filing of a charge sheet against the NCP leader, a local court had stayed Mr. Munde’s arrest.
