Hyderabad: Land grabbers use loopholes in the law to get their hands on properties by filing fake litigations and forging documents. In the two major land scams reported recently at Miyapur and Bojagutta, the suspects had filed writ petitions in the High Court, civil suits in the Civil Court and cases in the Land Grabbing courts using fictitious identities and fake documents. In some cases, both the petitioner and the defence were fictitious. When the court issued an injunction order, the grabber used the situation to sell the property to a third party.
According to legal experts, the courts have no mechanism to verify the authenticity of the submitted documents till the case is completed. Based on the petition and counter petition and documents submitted during the hearing, the courts usually issue injunctions to one party.
Land grabbers usually target properties of people living abroad and who are not paying attention to their assets. “The land grabbers usually play an elaborate trick. Both the petitioner and the defence work for the land grabber. When the petitioner submits the fictitious documents, the defence does not appeal to the court to verify the authenticity of the documents. The court then acts upon the basic documents and issues an injunction. Another way to verify the documents is to take suo motu, but the courts usually have so many backlogs that they can’t take suo motu decisionin every case,” said Gulam Rabbani , a senior advocate from city.
Once the injunction order is issued, the conman uses it to lure an unsuspecting customer and sells the property to him while the real owner is not even aware of the incident.
In the Bojagutta land scam, the suspects, including Sailesh Saxena and R. Srinivas, conspired to grab the 78-acre land at Bhojagutta in Gudimalkapur. They prepared fake documents of the land in the name of one Iqbal Islam Khan. One of the suspects, Mavoori Shiva Bhushan, impersonated himself as Iqbal Islam Khan, while another suspect Mohammed Baseer acted as Shakeel Islam Khan, son of Iqbal Islam Khan. They filed writ petitions before the High Court, suits in the civil courts and a case in the Land Grabbing court, staking a claim over the land based on fictitious documents. The court order is used to sell the land.
Judiciary has limitations
- The courts have no mechanism to verify the authenticity of submitted documents.
- The culprits usually target properties of people living abroad and not bothered about it.
- In all fake court cases, both the petitioner and the defence work for the same party.
