Man arrested for selling church property worth more than Rs 50 crore

PTI, Oct 16, 2021, 6:31 PM IST

New Delhi: The Delhi Police has arrested a 63-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh for allegedly selling a church property here worth more than Rs 50 crore in connivance with others, officials said on Saturday.

The accused has been identified as Shoral Bobby Dass, a resident of Civil Lines, Banda in UP, they said.

A case was registered in this regard on the complaint of Sulochana Prakash, president, Woman’s Christian Temperance of India, police said.

Prakash said the Women’s Christian Temperance of India is a bonafide owner of the property in question at 24, Raipur Road, New Delhi, they said.

She alleged that one Ramesh Chander Aggarwal in connivance with Sunil Kumar and Ajay Gupta prepared false and fabricated documents with regard to the property claiming themselves to be its owners, a senior police officer said.

She said their institution had never sold or transferred any portion of the property to Indian Church Trustees (ICT) or anyone else, police said.

The case was registered on July 14, 2007 under relevant sections of IPC. During investigation, the role of Dass and co-accused John Augustine had come out, they said.

“A General power of attorney (GPA) dated April 6, 2005 had been executed by Augustine in favour of Dass, who was made the attorney holder of all movable and immovable properties of the ICT, Church of India and CIPBC in the province of India,” the officer said.

Augustine, who was the Chairman of Indian Church Trustees, executed the GPA in favour of Dass giving him the right to manage all the property of Indian Church Trustees, police said.

Dass was the secretary in the organisation of Augustine. On July 29, 2005, Dass executed GPA in favour of co-accused Ramesh Aggarwal, who further executed three sale deeds in the name of co-accused Sunil Kumar on November 18, 2005.

It has also come into notice that chairman of Indian Church Trustees, Kolkata, CNI Delhi, CNI Lucknow and CNI Kolkata reported that Augustine never held the post of chairman of Indian Church Trustees nor the post of Metropolitan.

Augustine was never given any right or authority to manage any of the church or the property of church, so the GPA executed by Augustine in favour of Dass and further execution of GPA in favour of Ramesh Aggarwal, was null and void, police said.

“During investigation, it was revealed that Dass was absconding since the arrest of Augustine. Later, Dass was arrested on Thursday from Banda,” Additional Commissioner of Police (EOW) R K Singh said.

The accused had hatched a conspiracy to sell out the church’s property situated at 24 Rajpur Road, covering an area of 1.27 acres and worth more than Rs 50 crore, police added.