ACB arrests bogus architect in SRA scheme scam
Jatin Varjlal Shah submitted fake papers in slum rehabilitation scheme
Mumbai, November 29: The Mumbai Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Wednesday raided the residence and office of a bogus architect, identified as Jatin Varjlal Shah (37), and arrested him for playing a role in the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme scam by submitting fake documents.
According to ACB officials, Shah was wanted in the SRA fraud case, and is a close associate of Subhash Velji Chawda, one of those earlier arrested by the ACB in the same case.
In 2005, a complaint was filed by Arun Ramavtar Pathak against all the developers of Siddhi Vinayak Construction Company, alleging irregularities in the distribution of flats under the SRA scheme of 2001.
According to the complaint, the developers had forged papers to make about 95 non-eligible slum dwellers eligible for the scheme.
The ACB then arrested three developers and seven other people, including SRA officials.
We have raided Shah’s house at Old Nagardas Road in Andheri (East), as well as his plush officeat Rajeshri Accord in Telly Gully Cross Road, and then took him into custody. For the past four or five years he has been posing as an architect, while he is actually nothing more than a surveyor who holds an engineering diploma. To be an architect he has to be registered with the Council of Architecture, said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP), ACB, Vilas Tupe.
What is startling is that he was issued an identity card by SRA, stating that he is an architect. He has also submitted 26 projects which have already been cleared by SRA. We have recovered several rubber stamps with his name and designation as an architect imprinted on them, from his house.
Even his business card says that he is an architect. He has a surveyor’s license issued by the E Ward of the BMC, said Tupe.
Shah has been booked under the Architects Act, and for forgery and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code.
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