Bhopal: EOW books church officials

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has registered an FIR against five office bearers of Methodist Church of Jabalpur for capturing government land and bringing up illegal construction on it, officials said on Tuesday. According to them, it had incurred a loss of more than Rs 7.62 crore to the state coffer.

EOW Director General, Ajay Sharma told Free Press that they had received a complaint in which it was alleged that the officials of the Methodist Church had misused government land. They had raised illegal construction there which resulted in financial loss for the government.

According to the case, church officials had applied for renewal of the lease agreement of two different plots in the year 2000.

The then tehsildar of Ranjhi had recommended for the renewal and had asked to deposit the land lease amount in 2004.

Based on the recommendations, district collector of Jabalpur issued orders to register land lease documents and deposit the lease amount to the state government coffer.

But the church officials did not pay the amount and register the land lease documents.

The whole thing led to a loss of Rs 7,62,16,432 to the state government.

The EOW had registered the case under section 420 and 34 of IPC against the then district superintendent of Methodist church Jabalpur Rev John RA Simon, executive secretary Manish Gideon, Bishop M A Daniel, Ravikumar Prasad and treasurer Ariknath.