Grand aunt’s namesake used for bogus land sale

Ahmedabad: A 62-year-old man from Bopal has accused four persons of using forgery and impersonation to sell his grandmother’s land after her death, with one of the four perpetrators having the same name as his grand aunt.
Pravin Patel, a resident of Shivam Bungalows in Bopal, on Monday filed a complaint against Bhogilal Patel, Rajesh Solanki, Parth Patel, Laxmi Patel under the Indian Penal Code sections dealing with forgery, criminal conspiracy and cheating by impersonation.
Pravin stated that 8,296 square metres of land was in his family’s possession. He said that after the death of his great grandmother, Sita Patel, her son Poonam and daughter Sakari were her legal heirs.
Poonam and Sakari died in March 1956 and the name of Poonam’s wife, Laxmi, was added as legal heir to the said plot. The complainant said that his father and uncle, Jaswant and Jayanti, were Sakari’s children and her legal heirs. However, only Laxmi’s name had been put on the revenue records.
The complainant said Laxmi had stayed with the family and in 1988 registered a will bequeathing her property to the complainant’s father and uncle, Jaswant and Jayanti.
In 2012, she made another will, leaving half her property to the complainant and his brother Pankaj and the other half to their cousin, Jayendra, the son of Jayanti.
Laxmi died in 2014 and Jaswant and Jayanti also passed away. A court complaint was filed in 2015, to add the legal heirs of Jaswant and Jayanti to the land records for the plot. That matter is still pending. As Sakari’s name was not in the land records, a case was filed with the principal civil judge in Ahmedabad in 2023, which is also pending.
The complainant stated that he was checking the revenue records online and found that a sale deed had been executed for the said piece of land. It showed one Bhogilal Patel to be the new owner and Rajesh Solanki and Parth Patel as witnesses to the deal. A PAN card of one Laxmi Poonam Patel was attached in the supporting documents.
The complainant said that on checking the photo on the PAN card, he saw that it was not that of his grand aunt. He stated that from Oct 2023, Bhogilal Patel, Solanki and Parth had conspired with this other Laxmi Poonam Patel, to transfer the ownership of the land. He registered a complaint in this regard with Sarkhej police.