Bihar BJP MP loses Rs 6 crore in land fraud

NOIDA: A BJP MP from Bihar, RK Sinha, was allegedly cheated of over Rs 6 crore by a property dealer who sold him a plot along the Yamuna Expressway for organic farming.
The MP has lodged a complaint at Phase 3 police station, alleging that he was promised the plot in Simrethi area of Aligarh by one Rajiv Shankar Tiwari, who claimed to be the director of a real estate company in Noida and owner of the land.
It was only after Sinha had paid an advance of Rs 6.6 crore that he came to know that neither Tiwari nor his company owned the plot. Police are trying to trace the actual owners.
The FIR at Phase 3 police station mentions Tiwari as the director of Pyramid Finmart Private Limited. It says that the accused and the Rajya Sabha MP had reached a deal on November 20 last year for the land in Simrethi. “After the agreement, Rs 6,60,00,000 was transferred from an SBI account as an advance of 20%,” reads the FIR, lodged against Tiwari under IPC sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
“When my lawyer checked the documents of the land, he found that none of it as shown in the agreement belongs to either the company or the accused. This clearly means that I have been cheated and given false information,” the FIR adds.
After Tiwari was countered, he reportedly offered the MP a piece of land in another area, but Sinha insisted on the same plot. In the FIR, the MP mentions that his aides have found out that Tiwari has a criminal record and had been jailed in Patna once for fraud. “He was booked in Patrakar Nagar area, but released on bail after he approached the high court,” the FIR states.
According to the FIR, though Tiwari’s company is Delhi-based, it has a marketing office in Noida Sector 2.
When TOI tried to contact Sinha, a man who claimed to be his personal assistant picked up the call and said the land had been bought for organic farming. “We did not know his antecedents. After the fraud, we have informed police,” he said.
Sources said Sinha had directly approached SSP Vaibhav Krishna after the fraud came to light. It was, however, unclear why an FIR was lodged in Phase 3 police station when the company’s marketing office is in Sector 2, which falls under Sector 20 police station area.
Krishna said the FIR was lodged based on the area where the deal was reached at. Devendra Singh, the SHO of Phase 3 police station, said he registered the complaint after the circle officer directed him to do so.