Mumbai: In a shocking development in the case involving fraudulent promises of allotting cheap land in the Bombay Port Trust (BPT) area and garment supply contracts to the Maharashtra Police Academy in Nashik, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police has uncovered multiple scams allegedly orchestrated by Purushottam Chavan, husband of IPS officer Rashmi Karandikar.
According to the EOW probe, Chavan duped a complainant of ₹98 lakh by falsely promising a contract for manufacturing blue and white T-shirts for the BMC. At the time, the complainant was already working on a T-shirt and hoodie supply contract for the Maharashtra Police Academy in Nashik, when Chavan lured him into another fake opportunity.
Chavan allegedly showed forged documents to support his claim of securing the BMC contract, even going so far as to claim that he had produced 10,000 T-shirts as samples for the deal. Based on this deception, he extorted ₹98 lakh from the complainant.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) later raided Chavan’s Colaba residence and seized the forged BMC contract papers. Upon ED’s recommendation, the BMC initiated an internal inquiry and found the documents to be entirely fake.
Investigators have also learned that Chavan has undertaken multiple foreign trips, the details of which are currently being verified. Additionally, EOW uncovered that Chavan had fabricated Transferable Development Rights (TDR) certificates related to land parcel numbers 06974 and 65/1/2 in Hadapsar, Pune, and used them to falsely promise the sale would generate ₹5 crore, purportedly to fund the clothing supply project in Nashik. He similarly forged a TDR certificate from Thane Municipal Corporation.
When the authenticity of the documents recovered from his home was verified through correspondence with Pune and Thane municipal bodies, both corporations confirmed that the documents were counterfeit.
EOW is now investigating how and where these fake development rights and contract documents were created, and whether Chavan used the defrauded funds to acquire assets, which may soon be subject to seizure. The investigation is ongoing.
