Builders booked for conning lawyer

Vadodara: A lawyer was cheated alleged by a city-based realty group for forging sale deed of an apartment of a residential scheme in Bhayli. The builder had sold the terrace of the building to lawyer Rahul Sharma despite it not being allowed for sale.

Sharma lodged a complaint of cheating and forgery against the promoter of Aatmiya group Sanjay Patel, his partner Aakash Brahmbhatt and one Lomesh Patel, who registered the forged sale deed at sub-registrar’s office.

Sharma stated that he got interested in buying a property in project named Aatmiya Signature foated by the accused. He paid Rs 1 lakh as the booking amount for the apartment with a terrace rights of the same size as the apartment. Sharma was promised the receipt for the booking amount the next day. However, Aakash kept dilly-dallying and said that Sharma will be given the receipts of the booking amount and first instalment of Rs 7 lakh along with the sale deed. On September 1 last year, Sharma paid the first instalment of Rs 7 lakh.

Several days later, Sharma was called to check the draft sale deed. After correcting a few errors, Sharma signed on every page and he was told that the deed will be registered within a couple of days and he will be called to the sub-registrar’s office. But the sale deed was registered without informing Sharma and six pages of it were also changed. The terms and conditions of the payments, details of the apartment and other details were removed. It also mentioned that Sharma had paid Rs 7 lakh although he had paid Rs 8 lakh.

Sharma lodged a complaint with Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority in March and in August it was proven that the pages in the sale deed were changed.