Mumbai: Fifteen years ago, 41 residential-cum-commercial buildings were constructed illegally in the Virar-Nalasopara area near Mumbai on land earmarked for public use. In February this year, they were demolished on court orders, which resulted in many families being rendered homeless. Now, these fallen buildings are at the centre of an alleged scam worth Rs 9,000 crore.
Last week, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) sprang into action, raiding multiple locations in Mumbai and Hyderabad in connection with a money laundering probe linked to these buildings. A total of Rs 32 crore was recovered from a town planning official of the Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC), Y.S. Reddy. According to the agency, more VVMC officials could be involved. Several builders, politicians and local henchmen are also under the scanner, in connection with what is being probed as a massive case of land grabbing, illegal construction, and sale of flats using fake occupancy certificates.
Of the 60 acres on which the buildings were erected, around 30 acres were reserved for a sewage treatment plant and dumping ground. The remaining patch was private land, allegedly grabbed by a former corporator and his accomplices.
The ED is now probing the matter based on an investigation by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mira-Bhayander-Vasai-Virar (MBVV) police, which had begun in 2023. The EOW initiated its probe after multiple FIRs were registered at the Achole police station in Vasai.
The many families that were displaced by the February demolitions of the 41 buildings—carried out on the orders of the Bombay High Court, which were later upheld by the Supreme Court—are still awaiting rehabilitation.
Advocate Vijay Kurle, who represents the affected residents, told ThePrint, “We have sought directions from the high court and state government for rehabilitation. But the state is taking time to frame the (rehabilitation) policy. They have already taken time after demolition of these buildings, and it is now violating the residents’ fundamental right to shelter.”
ThePrint has reached VVMC commissioner Anil Pawar via calls and messages for comment. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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The allegations & a timeline of the case
Until the 1990s, Virar-Vasai was governed by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). Then the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) was appointed as special planning authority, until 2009, when the VVMC was formed, and took over in 2010.
However, the constant factor since 2004 was Y.S. Reddy, the town planning official in the Vasai-Virar sub region. He was previously posted under CIDCO, and as soon as VVMC was formed, he was transferred there. Several activists and protesters claim this was done without due process.
In 2006, Sitaram Gupta—a former corporator from regional political party Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi, and the “main perpetrator” of the alleged scam according to the EOW—started fraudulently acquiring land in the area, along with his relative Arun Gupta and others.
The 60-acre plot was a mix of government and privately owned land. Around 30 acres spread across Agarwal Nagar in Nalasopara East was reserved for a dumping ground and sewage treatment plant. The rest was private land owned by one family, the Patels.
When Ajay Sharma, caretaker of this private property owned by the Patel brothers—Mohanlal, Ramanlal and Dhirajlal, based in Canada and New Zealand—visited the site back in 2008, he saw construction boards on the plot.
In 2009, a few structures had started coming up on the land—initially in the form of chawls, and then bigger buildings.
Sharma filed multiple complaints with the VVMC, but claims they went unheard. Speaking to ThePrint, he claimed that starting 2009, Sitaram Gupta and Arun Gupta colluded with local henchmen to grab land using fake commencement certificates, and that this was done at the behest of underworld don Chota Rajan’s aide Vijay Tambat.
Sharma said he had complained against Sitaram Gupta, not Tambat, who was arrested by EOW after investigation.
Between 2010 and 2012, several illegal structures came up on the plot. Sharma told ThePrint that the Guptas sold the units without any right to do so.
“VVMC officials including Anil Pawar are involved in this scam. Although the buildings were built before Pawar’s tenure, after he took over as commissioner, property tax was recovered from these units,” he said.
He further alleged that “high-level corruption” had taken place through the route of the Prabhag Samiti (division committee)—a panel within the municipal corporation that focuses on local issues, and acts as a bridge between residents of a ward and the local administration.
“Most transfers within VVMC happened in Prabhag Samiti–D, where at least 10 people were transferred in a year on an average. Because whenever I used to complain and it used to be in the final stages, new officers would be present,” said Sharma.
He claimed that since he had been pursuing the matter, he had also been physically attacked.
In 2016, Dhananjay Gawade, a former Shiv Sena corporator, had complained to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) that VVMC’s Y.S. Reddy had offered him a bribe of Rs 1 crore to withdraw complaints against him.
Speaking to ThePrint, Gawade alleged that Reddy was involved in granting bogus commencement certificates based on building permit (BP) numbers. Since the plot was reserved for public use, the BP number would get rejected. But the buildings would be constructed anyway. “For example, a ground plus one certificate would be given. Then slowly, that certificate would be manipulated to build extra floors, and Reddy never paid attention as he himself was involved,” he said. “I realised all this after 2015, when I became the corporator and I complained.”
After this, Reddy was suspended from service for two years, but was later reinstated to the same post.
Local activist Terence Hendriquies, who has been speaking out about the alleged scam for a long time, questioned how Reddy was kept in the same position for several years. “Every officer normally gets transferred in three years, but Reddy was not moved from the town planning department,” he said. “And it is not only about Reddy. Many second level officials were transferred, but reinstated in VVMC after a gap of a few months or so. Why?”
Under Reddy, about 80 percent of the plots were sold illegally, Hendriquies alleged.
He added that he had filed an RTI query seeking the number of illegal units sold in the area under VVMC, and was shocked to find out that around 5 lakh illegal units had been sold, on which property tax was recovered. ThePrint has seen the RTI response.
Gawade had also claimed to have exposed several illegal constructions in Vasai-Virar area before. But in 2021, he was accused of extortion based on the information obtained via RTI by affected builders, and was subsequently arrested.
However, he claimed that he was, in fact, the whistleblower in the case, and was released in 2023.
The investigation so far
Multiple FIRs in the matter were registered in 2022 after Sharma’s complaints under sections 420, 447, 465, 467, 468, 471, 474 and 34 (cheating, criminal trespass, forgery, possession of forged document, using forged document as genuine, among others) of the Indian Penal Code.
According to an FIR based on the Patels’ complaint, the family had owned the plot since 1977. In 2008, when they realised that construction was being undertaken on their plot, they found out that Sitaram Gupta had forged documents to show that he had bought the land from them, Piyush Patel, a relative of the Patels, said in the FIR.
In August 2023, the case was transferred to the EOW. According to the EOW notice, on plot surveys number 22-34 reserved for dumping ground and sewage treatment plant, “illegal buildings were constructed using forged documents and people were duped”.
The EOW found in its probe that Sitaram and Tambat were issuing bogus certificates on behalf of VVMC, suspecting that VVMC officials were involved, after which the two were arrested.
According to EOW’s supplementary chargesheet, the accused Arun Gupta, Sitaram Gupta and Vijay Tambat all connived and produced forged documents.
After this came the court judgment that the structures on survey number 22-34 should be demolished.
“There are many officers of VVMC, who have flats in the illegal buildings. I had complained to VVMC many times, but it all fell on deaf ears,” said Hendriquies, quoted earlier.
On 5 May this year, Sharma filed a writ petition in the court against VVMC commissioner Pawar, alleging, “The members of the land mafia use force, violence as well as unnatural influence from office bearers of VVMC to sell the land to third parties… And despite the court action against the encroachers in Vasai and Virar and orders by the court, no positive action was taken on the part by VVMC. On the contrary, there is a rise in such activities.”
Demolition & residents’ ordeal
Among the buyers of the residential flats in these illegal buildings were daily wage earners, labourers, and those from lower middle class. The demolition impacted about 2,100 families.
As the matter reached the Bombay High Court in July 2024, an order was passed to demolish the illegal buildings. But since it was during the monsoon months, the court had given temporary relief to the residents—which could be between 8,000 and 10,000 in number—in terms of more time.
In October 2024, the high court refused to stay the order further. Initially, seven buildings were demolished. The residents then approached the Supreme court, which eventually upheld the demolition order.
By February this year, all 41 buildings were demolished.
The apex court had asked the Maharashtra government to come up with a policy to rehabilitate the affected people. But five months down the line, there is nothing in sight. In this period, students were affected, too, said advocate Kurle, as one of the schools on the stretch of land was also demolished. About 50 students ended up missing their Class 10 examinations.
Many of the impacted families are now living with their relatives or in kuccha houses.
Kurle said that the next hearing in the Bombay High Court is in June after the court’s summer break to seek rehabilitation on an urgent basis. “We have raised all these issues, and in the next hearing, we will insist that the state should form the policy, and if not, we will press for the alternate accommodation.”
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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