Events & Personalities
Impostor in land grab bid
By making a Parsi senior citizen pose as a landowner and file a false petition in the Bombay High Court (BHC), former Maharashtra legislator Gilbert Mendonsa has been exposed for trying to grab a 109 acre plot in Thana worth Rs 1,500 crore, reported Mumbai Mirror (MM) in its edition of March 9, 2016. The story was first broken by The Golden Sparrow, a web magazine.
Filed in December 2015 in the name of Silloo Mistri, the petition alleged that the Thana police was not taking action against a builder who had got government records altered without her knowledge. The petition stated that official documents showed Mistri had entered into an agreement with the builder for sale of her property. It urged that the police file a first information against the builder, noted MM.
The scam was exposed when senior advocate Jehangir Mistri told the BHC that Silloo Mistri, his mother, had not filed any such case as she had disposed of the property in 1989. Investigations reportedly revealed there was an impostor. This turned out to be 74-year-old Bombay Central resident Pilloo Mehta who had allegedly posed as Silloo. She claimed that her brother Kersi Guard had tempted her with money to file the false petition, MM stated. The Thana police have registered a case of cheating, impersonation, forgery and criminal intimidation against Mehta, Guard, Mendonsa, Ashok Hire and lawyer G. B. Lal, reported MM.
Falsified documents had reportedly also been submitted by the five accused to the tehsildar’s office claiming that the land belonged to ‘Silloo Mistri.’ Guard was arrested in early March and police sources told MM that Mendonsa will soon be apprehended as well.
Mehta is said to have filed an affidavit in the BHC tendering an unconditional apology, iterating that she would not repeat such an act. "This was the first such incident where I acted out of undue influence exerted by my brother who was under pressure from the land mafia, particularly Gilbert Mendonsa who was involved in land grabbing cases in and around Mira Road and Bhayander,” she informed MM.
Filed in December 2015 in the name of Silloo Mistri, the petition alleged that the Thana police was not taking action against a builder who had got government records altered without her knowledge. The petition stated that official documents showed Mistri had entered into an agreement with the builder for sale of her property. It urged that the police file a first information against the builder, noted MM.
The scam was exposed when senior advocate Jehangir Mistri told the BHC that Silloo Mistri, his mother, had not filed any such case as she had disposed of the property in 1989. Investigations reportedly revealed there was an impostor. This turned out to be 74-year-old Bombay Central resident Pilloo Mehta who had allegedly posed as Silloo. She claimed that her brother Kersi Guard had tempted her with money to file the false petition, MM stated. The Thana police have registered a case of cheating, impersonation, forgery and criminal intimidation against Mehta, Guard, Mendonsa, Ashok Hire and lawyer G. B. Lal, reported MM.
Falsified documents had reportedly also been submitted by the five accused to the tehsildar’s office claiming that the land belonged to ‘Silloo Mistri.’ Guard was arrested in early March and police sources told MM that Mendonsa will soon be apprehended as well.
Mehta is said to have filed an affidavit in the BHC tendering an unconditional apology, iterating that she would not repeat such an act. "This was the first such incident where I acted out of undue influence exerted by my brother who was under pressure from the land mafia, particularly Gilbert Mendonsa who was involved in land grabbing cases in and around Mira Road and Bhayander,” she informed MM.
◆ ◆ ◆
From the archive