The Tiruchi City Crime Branch – II on Thursday arrested S. Govindaraj, 56, state deputy president of BJP agricultural wing, and his wife Geetha on charges of forgery and cheating a resident of Srirangam.
Two other persons, both brokers, have also been named as accused in the case. The action was based on a complaint preferred by Devarajan of Srirangam against Govindaraj, also a resident of Srirangam. Police sources said Govindaraj had taken on lease a piece of land at Veereswaram in Srirangam on lease from Rengasamy in 2021 and allegedly refused to hand over the land at the end of the lease period.
Later Govindaraj had allegedly forged the signature of Rengasamy to enter into “an agreement” to sell the land to Devarajan who was scouting for land apparently to construct an old age home and received ₹4.82 crore as advance. The amount is alleged to have been deposited in the bank account of Govindaraj’s wife in 2021.
As Govindaraj neither took steps to register the land and nor return the advance amount, Devarajan lodged a complaint with the City Crime Branch where a case was registered on Thursday under various IPC sections including 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 417 (cheating) 465 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record). IPC sections were invoked instead of BNS since the offence took place prior to July 1, 2024, the sources added.
Published – November 21, 2024 08:32 pm IST