Women sentenced for selling Land fraudulently to Income Tax Department

A special court here sentenced a lady to three years in prison and a Rs 40,000 fine, 25 years after the Central Bureau of Investigation submitted a charge for the illegal sale of a land tract to the income tax department.

Manjula Patel’s trial spanned 19 years, during which her husband Shankar Patel and co-accused Prahlad Bonikhanna died.

In 1990, the IT department purchased 5,802 square metres of land in Memnagar. The land lot had 11 owners, and the accused faked the signatures of some of them on a power of attorney in behalf of Manjula without alerting all of them.

An agreement to sell was struck in 1987, and the sale was sealed when income tax authorities certified the possession certificate in April 1990.

In 1997, the CBI filed a FIR against Manjula and others for forging landowners’ signatures, preparing a false power of attorney and presenting it to IT officials as a valid document, forging landowners’ signatures on affidavits, and issuing payment receipts after receiving payment from the Income tax department.

Manjula’s spouse had deceased by the time the matter reached court in 2004. Three people were released by the court during the trial. Bonikhanna passed away in April 2021.

Manjula’s trial was finished, and she was found guilty of falsifying documents to defraud landowners and IT inspectors. She was found guilty of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy under Sections 420, 406, 467, 468, 471, and 120-B of the IPC.