Forgery scam hits Rajkot’s oldest education trust

RAJKOT: Forgery scandal has hit one of the most reputed and oldest education trusts of the city. The city police on Wednesday arrested four family members of the late educationist Vasant Malaviya’s family for forging his will to take over the control of all its property worth crores.

Police arrested Manoj Shah, son of Malaviya’s sister, Manoj’s son Vishal, Kamlesh Jani, Principal of PD Malaviya College and another employee Paresh Mehta for forgery and cheating. Manoj is the trustee of the college.

Vasant Malaviya, who founded the college, died in February this year. He had not children.

Police began investigation after Sanjay Pandya, a computer programmer at PDM College, filed an application of complaint and raised questions about illegal transactions being done in Malviya’s trust. He had also raised questions about Malaviya’s death and said it was suspicious, M J Solanki, assistant commissioner of police, told media persons on Wednesday

Pandya had also named Manoj’s wife Sudha besides those arrested in his application. All have been booked under various sections of Indian Penal Code including 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will etc) among others.

“Vasant Malaviya and some others were trustees of Sanskrutik Saikshnik Samaj Trust that runs PDM College. Vasant Malaviya died in February and he had not prepared any will about trust’s property and his own assets. But to grab this property, Manoj and his family members forged documents and made a will to get the possession illegally and he became the trustee,” said Solanki

He further alleged that Manoj and Vishal also forged documents and became trustees in Popatlal Dhanjibhai Malviya Trust and withdrew money from the trust’s accounts.

Pandya also claimed that accused has started selling of Malviya’s personal property on basis of forged documents.