MUMBAI: A former business development officer of Lodha Developers Ltd has been booked for allegedly cheating the firm of ₹3.84 crore by manipulating ownership and possession details of a property in Bhiwandi.
The case was registered on a complaint filed by Prakash Sawant, 47, associate general manager at Lodha Developers, which has its office at Apollo Mills compound in Mahalaxmi.
According to the police, the accused, Shivaji Jadhav, 56, a resident of Bhiwandi, was employed with the company from 2007 to 2024 and was responsible for identifying, buying and selling land for its projects across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and other parts of Maharashtra. In 2021, the firm was scouting for land parcels in Thane and Bhiwandi for a development project, and Jadhav was tasked with identifying suitable properties. He informed the company about a plot located at Mankoli in Bhiwandi and submitted a list of landowners and possession holders.
Sawant told the police that Jadhav falsely submitted that several persons were in possession of the land and that their claims would need to be settled before development could proceed. Accordingly, the company agreed to allot six flats to the named possession holders across various Lodha projects in Thane.
Police said the accused had, in fact, persuaded the original landowner to let him add fake possession holders to the list and, in return, promised contracts for the supply of construction material for the project.
The alleged fraud came to light earlier this month when senior business executive Sanjay Patil scrutinised the property documents and detected irregularities. The complaint stated that the cheating took place between May and September 2024. Jadhav resigned from the company in September 2024. Subsequently, the associate general manager of the firm approached the police last week, after which a case was registered Jadhav under Sections 336 (forgery) and 318 (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.