Telangana: Stamp duty paid was subpar

Hyderabad: The names of P.S. Prasad and Goldstone Infratech Limited figured prominently in the Miyapur land scam unearthed earlier this year. Mr Prasad and his brother Mr Parthasarathi and another person, P.V.S. Sharma, connived with the sub-registrar, R. Srinivasa Rao, to register four false sale documents for 691.04 acres of government land and another two documents for 119 acres in Miyapur. 

The Stamps and Registrations department estimated that the government should have earned Rs 600 crore in stamp duty for the six registration documents, but since the documents were registered in another category, stamp duty of just Rs 1 lakh for each of the eight documents was paid. Preliminary estimates revealed that the land was worth Rs 10,000 crore.  

Later on, in the investigation, officials suspected that Mr Prasad had bought the land in order to get compensation from the Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited as the sales agreements made by him were not having any boundaries.

The modus operandi of Mr Prasad is that he creates fabricated documents in two names without the knowledge of the actual owners and the two parties go to court both claiming ownership. Later, one of the parties goes in for a compromise and gets a compromise-decree from the court. Based on the compromise decree, it is very easy to obtain mutations, layout and building permissions.

Mr Prasad has a history of doubtful deals. He had been involved in a bank fraud in the US and trials in cheating cases are pending in US courts. In 1988 he applied for a loan of $ 1.9Mn with Bank of India in the US for investing in the hotel business along with two others. He took another loan of about $1.4Mn from the State Bank of India in the US and tried to take a loan of about $2.5Mn from Branch Banking & Trust. Victims of Mr Prasad say he has good relations with some top political leaders in Telangana State as well as in national parties.

Following a complaint lodged by a city-based bank manager, D.V. Shan-kara Rao, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) also registered a case against Mr Prasad in March of this year and asked the Enforcement Directorate to take necessary action against him for his illegal activities in setting up shell companies and frauds.