Mumbai: The Azad Maidan police have arrested a 32-year-old lawyer from Shivaji Nagar in Parbhani district for orchestrating a fraudulent land deal worth ₹2.4 crore with a businessman. The lawyer, Sunil Shivaji Budhwant, enlisted the help of Govind Rahate and Jagdish Anchan to buy the land.
The police said that Patel wanted to buy the land for business and was introduced to Nagraj Devendra, who claimed authority to sell a disputed land in Borivali after its owner’s death, through broker Suresh Bodh. Devendra told Patel that advocate Nitin Mane could resolve the land dispute as the case was in the high court and a court receiver had been appointed to settle it.
Mane quoted a fee of ₹50 lakh, prompting Patel to transfer the amount to Mane’s account. Later, one Ravikumar (who later turned out to be Budhwant), posed as the lawyer of one of the new owners of the land, Pervez Irani. Patel was told that the cost of the land is ₹6 crore but he could split it into ₹4 crore and ₹2 crore deals between the contested owners and Irani. At Mane’s urging, Patel paid ₹2.5 crore in cash and a ₹1.5 crore cheque to Ravikumar and Irani, who later turned out to be one Rajkumar Ramsevak Singh.
On Patel’s written complaint to the Additional Commissioner of Police (south Mumbai), an FIR was registered in October 2022 against Advocate Nitin Mane, Rajkumar Singh and Sunil Budhwant for impersonation, cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code. The arrest in the matter was made only recently.
