12 booked by EOW for illegal land transfer from church

Jabalpur: Economic Offences and Wing (EOW) has registered a case against 12 accused for illegally occupying and encroaching upon land belonging to the Methodist church. The district administration had previously ordered to record the land as government property due to the non-renewal of its lease.The 12 accused — Ravi Theodore, J.P. Canelias, Manish Gidyan, Ravi Prasad, Mahesh Kumar Dudani, Rasmith Singh Malhotra, Ravikant Agrawal, Mahesh Kumar Nanakani, Ghanashyamdas Nanakani, Mahendra Singh Gujral, and Monangi Daniel — colluded with church officials to fraudulently transfer and sell this valuable land at a lower price, causing financial loss to the government and the church. The sale was conducted without obtaining necessary permissions, including permission from the charitable commissioner, Mumbai, which was mandatory. All accused have been booked Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, and 120B of IPC. In 1970, the secretary of the executive board of the Methodist church was allotted a residential land of 2,65,000 square feet on lease. The lease was scheduled for renewal in 1999, and an application for the same was made in 2022. During the investigation of the lease renewal application, it was discovered that 5,880 square feet of the land had been used for constructing shops. The remaining portion of the land was being used for a Christian school. Subsequently, the deputy collector's Court ordered the registration of this land in the name of the revenue department. Tnn