New Delhi, April 3 – A special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Delhi has convicted and sentenced four individuals, including two former officials of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, for their involvement in a 2006 land allotment scam involving the Maharani Awanti Bai Cooperative Group Housing Society, the agency said on Friday.
The court on Thursday awarded rigorous imprisonment to Lila Krishna Seth, then assistant registrar, and Zafar Iqbal, then inspector grade III in the office of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS), the CBI said.
Seth was sentenced to one year in prison, while Iqbal received one year and six months. Both were also fined Rs 20,000 each.
In the same case, two private individuals, identified as Ram Narayan Aggarwal and Om Prakash Aggarwal, who were office bearers of the Maharani Awanti Bai Cooperative Group Housing Society, were also sentenced to two years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 20,000 each.
"The accused conspired to cheat the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) by manipulating records to secure undue land allotments," the CBI statement said.
According to the CBI, the case was registered on November 8, 2006, following the directions from the Delhi High Court. Investigations revealed alleged collusion between the officials of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies and members of the housing society to cheat the DDA.
The accused were found to have manipulated official records related to the functioning of the society to obtain land allotment. The CBI filed the chargesheet in this case on October 22, 2007.
After a prolonged trial, the court found the accused guilty and pronounced sentences accordingly.
This conviction adds to a string of recent successes by the CBI in the long-standing CGHS scam. In March 2024, the court convicted former RCS official, identified as Narayan Diwakar and others in the Imamia CGHS case in Delhi.
In another case, a special CBI court in Chennai convicted DN International and its four directors in a Rs. 5.75 crore bank fraud case. The court had sentenced the directors to five years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined them Rs 4 lakh each, while imposing a similar fine on the company as well.