A 63-year-old former JNU employee was arrested for allegedly duping professors of the varsity and IIT Delhi of more than Rs 11 crore on the pretext of providing affordable housing project under the guise of DDA’s purported land-pooling policy.
Police identified the accused as PD Gaikwad, a resident of Gurugram in Haryana. An FIR was registered on the complaints of these professors. It was alleged that in 2015, Gaikwad, who was working as a scientific officer at the university’s School of Environmental Sciences, formed the Noble Socio-Scientific Welfare Organisation (NSSWO) claiming to provide affordable housing. He allegedly made a presentation and lured them into becoming members of the organisation. In his capacity as the president of the organisation, Gaikwad provided them details of a proposed housing project under DDA’s purported land-pooling policy for which he said the NSSWO was in the process of procuring land in the proposed L-Zone, police said.
Police further said the complainants became members of the NSSWO and booked units in the proposed project. The complainants paid membership fees and payments for their flats, they added. A senior police officer said on November 1, 2015, the accused took them to show a piece of land in the L-Zone, Najafgarh. However, he did not show any document supporting the purchase of the land, the officer added.
Over the years, they came to realise that he was allegedly cheating them. In 2019, Gaikwad allegedly told the complainants that he was going to launch a different society, Siddhartha Officers Housing and Social Welfare Society, through the Delhi government and as members of the NSSWO, complainants could change their membership to the new society by visiting his office in JNU.
Since 2019, police said, the complainants were writing to Gaikwad to return their money. He has collected more than Rs 11 crore from them and misappropriated the same, they added.
During investigation, complainants provided the materials/brochures and receipts issued by Gaikwad containing pictures of a housing project and depicting the said land-pooling policy, said DCP (EOW) Surendra Choudhary. Gaikwad had allegedly formed a society for cheating and became its president. E-mails sent by Gaikwad to the members on regular basis also contained the elements of inducement depicting the land-pooling policy of the DDA, Choudhary said.
However, during investigation, the DDA said it has not issued any licence or granted any approval to any housing project under land-pooling policy in Dwarka or any other land-pooling zone nor authorised any developer/builder/society/company, including the NSSWO, to offer any flat in the name of DDA under land-pooling policy. RERA (Delhi) also confirmed that the alleged society has neither registered itself with it nor applied for registration. It was revealed that Gaikwad allegedly received more than Rs 11 crore in the account of the society from its members, however, the funds were either siphoned off through cash withdrawal or transferred to other accounts, police said.
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