New Delhi: The Economics Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police on Friday evening registered its first case in the alleged irregularities in the allotment of over 5,000 flats by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and arrested a man from Rajasthan.
“We have registered a case and arrested Laxmi Narayan Meena from Junjhunu in Rajasthan on charges of cheating, forgery and impersonation,” Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.
The case was registered on the complaint of one person who was successfully allotted through a draw of lots a pre-built flat under the DDA scheme. The allottee's identity has been kept a secret.
The police said Meena, 54, forged documents of some people who have been awarded flats during the DDA allotment on December 16.
Meena was sacked from his job at the State Bank of India (SBI), and is stated to have visited houses of several SC/ST people along with two others and collected their names and addresses to apply for flats in the housing scheme under the reserved category quota.
Sources said Meena, a former district community president, filed close to 200 applications after collecting details of people from his community. At least 11 people were allotted flats during the draw but ironically most of the people from Rajasthan neither knew that they have been allotted a flat nor had they paid the mandatory registration fee.
Before his arrest, Meena pledged his innocence.
“No document was forged and nobody was coerced. I wanted to help people from my community and when some people from Delhi asked me to get volunteers, I agreed,” Meena said.
When asked why he had not informed the 11 people who got the flats, Meena said: “I was telling people on Thursday and asked them to arrange for the money on time.”
Investigators zeroed in on Meena when they discovered that some of the "controversial" allottees and applicants were from the same village in Rajasthan.
Sources in the police said Meena has been brought to the national capital by a team of EOW. “He would be questioned about those real estate agents in Delhi with whom he conspired and forged the documents. We may arrest more people,” said a police officer.
However, a top Crime Branch Delhi Police official virtually gave clearance to officials of DDA in the said irregularities.
"We cannot say it is a scam. There are irregularities which are either at the individual level or some group might be involved. So far in our investigation we have not found any evidence against any DDA personnel,” the official told IANS.
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