
Thane: Police on Saturday arrested a builder from Mira-Bhayander township for failing to surrender excess land to the government under the Urban Land Ceiling (ULC) Act.
Shaymsunder Agarwal was arrested while his brother Murlidhar Agrawal and architect Anil Motiramani were booked by Thane city police on the complaint of Milan Gandhi, a real estate agent. Police have also booked some officials of the ULC department of the collectorate and the civic corporation.
Cops suspect several former revenue as well as municipal corporation officers to be involved in the scam, which may run into over Rs100 crore.
Agrawal was produced in the holiday court and remanded to police custody till Tuesday. Police said they have unearthed a fraud to the tune of Rs 11.17 crore.
The builder was supposed to surrender 5% of the land (2,023 sqm or half an acre) to the government for building houses for the economically weaker sections. The FIR said Agarwal fraudulently showed that this portion of the land had been exempted from surrender. “They also managed the non-agriculture and other building permissions from departments concerned by forging an exemption certificate,” said Parag Manere, deputy commissioner of police (crime).
Source: Times Of India