Gujarat Hard Look: Web Of Lies | Ahmedabad News

It is here, in this typical government building, that 46-year-old Morris Samuel Christian ran a court of his own until very recently. Room number 109, now closed, bears a signage in Gujarati: ‘Samadhan Kaksh cum Mediation Room’.

Christian, allegedly posing as ‘sole arbitrator’, ran his kangaroo court of sorts for five years, passing orders related to land disputes, mostly to extort money from government agencies, said officials. His luck ran out on October 21 when he was arrested following an FIR based on a complaint by Hardik Desai, Registrar of the Ahmedabad City Civil Court.

It is not like Christian’s shenanigans had gone completely unnoticed all this while; in June 2023, he did earn a rebuke from the Gujarat High Court besides a warning from the International Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ICADR) attached to the order. It stated, “…no person can impose himself as a Sole Arbitrator or conduct any Arbitration Proceeding without the consent of both the parties. Mr. Samuel’s Annual Membership will cease shortly because he has been indulging in many malpractices e.g., misrepresenting the Institution which enrolled him as Member in good faith and posing as an Authorised Arbitrator of the Institutions concerned – a totally false claim in so far as ICADR is concerned.” However, his activities continued until his arrest.

On November 3, Christian was sent to judicial custody in Sabarmati Central jail in Ahmedabad. The Ahmedabad City police, which is investigating the case, has found an alleged accomplice: Dilip Rathod, a supposed advocate who is accused of sheltering Christian and destroying evidence by disposing of the 46-year-old’s laptop after his arrest.

A resident of Ahmedabad, the earliest records present of Christian holding his “arbitral court” go back to 2015. Around that time, he would hold his “court” in Sector-21 area before moving to Sector-24 and finally, carving out a space on Gandhinagar court premises. Photos from his heyday show him dressed professionally in a black suit in a room with raised dais and several plastic chairs for the petitioners to be seated.

On his LinkedIn profile, Christian mentions that he is a Doctor of Legum (LLD) (doctorate in laws), from the Commonwealth Vocational University of Tonga. He also claims to have a PhD in Philosophy with Conflict Resolution from Vivekanand College in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

‘Toll booth’ site: Vaghasia village, Wankaner

The National Highway-27 from Wankaner has a brand new feature: A booth set up on the dusty track off the highway to collect toll from commuters taking a bypass from Vaghasia village. A similar booth can be found on the exit route from the village. These booths, set up on November 1 with their finishing touches still underway, were set up by the Bamanbore Tollway Pvt Ltd (BTPL), a private company entrusted with the task.

The officials working here, though, have their task cut out: to assure commuters that their facility is legal. The doubt in the mind of the commuters is not without reason; until December 2023, at this very spot, a fake toll booth had been running operations with no less than the sarpanch of Vaghasia, Dharmendrasinh Zala, being allegedly involved.

The accused allegedly used the premises of a defunct tile manufacturing unit to carry out the illegal activity. Notably, White House Tiles Pvt Ltd (WHTPL) is owned by a prominent Patidar leader, Jeram Vansjaliya, whose son Amarshi was among the five arrested in the case.
The NH-27 (formerly 8A) connects the ceramic hub of Morbi with the rest of the country, including the two major ports – Kandla and Mundra – in Kutch district.

The NHAI established this plaza in 2010, and handed it to BTPL in 2018 for 30 years under the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) concession. Since the highway cuts through Vaghasia village, villagers crossing it to reach their fields on the other side were allowed to use the dirt track that bypassed the official toll booth. Soon, other vehicles headed towards Morbi began slipping on to this dirt track to bypass the official booth before hitting the highway again.

That’s when some villagers came up with the idea of collecting toll from such motorists. They won the confidence of the commuters by claiming that the amount collected from toll would be used to build temples. This continued for several years and in December 2022, another “toll booth” cropped up on the other side of the highway, on the premises of the defunct tile unit, for vehicles coming from Morbi side, said officials.

The cover was blown when the then Collector G T Pandya, based on complaints received by NHAI, set up a team led by Wankaner Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) A H Sherasiya and Morbi district police officers to investigate reports of the fake toll booths. Purported drone videos showing vehicles taking the bypass had gone viral at the time.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a government official said that toll revenue of at least Rs 5 lakh was being diverted through the illegal route every day. The official said, “Since the fake toll booths were shut down, there has been a 25% average increase in daily revenue at the Vaghasia toll plaza, increasing from Rs17 lakh to Rs 22 lakh per day.”

Morbi Collector KB Jhaveri told The Indian Express, “There was no loss to the government exchequer as the Vaghasia toll plaza is being run by a private company.” The Collector said the duration for which the fake toll booths were operational are “unavailable” in the report submitted by the SDM at that time, adding the matter is a subject of police investigation.

With Zala suspended following his arrest, the village, currently, has no sarpanch. District Development Officer (DDO) J S Prajapati said, “The gram panchayat is being run by the Deputy Sarpanch.” Police officials said that all the accused are out on bail. The Indian Express found no one at Zala’s house.

‘Leaks’ in the Irrigation Dept: Bodeli, Chhota Udepur

When The Indian Express visited Vraj Heights Complex in Modasar of Bodeli taluka in Chhota Udepur, nearly a year after a fake irrigation office running from one of the flats here was busted, the residential premises on the floor were locked as were the shops in the building, apparently due to Diwali vacations.

Although reluctant to initially speak out, the owner of a shop in the building shared that he did sense something amiss with the so-called irrigation office. “It did not have visitors like other government offices… It remained shut most of the time with only a few men being spotted occasionally, giving the impression that it was being used for business purposes. It did not have any visitors or applicants coming or asking for directions, either,” he told The Indian Express.

Before being busted, a paper pinned to a notice board inside Flat no 211 would state “Executive Engineer, Bodeli”, according to officers of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is investigating the Rs 21.5-crore scam that siphoned off grants meant for tribals under the sub-plan.
Investigations so far have found that retired IAS officer BD Ninama, now under arrest, had allegedly been running the racket while still in office, since 2016. “When Ninama retired in May 2022, they rented the office to store their printers, fake documents and other seals,” an officer associated with the investigation told The Indian Express on the condition of anonymity.

As per the modus operandi, one of the accused, Sandeep Rajput, posed as an executive engineer using forged signatures and government seals used to secure government grants, along with 19 others for the office that ran under the name of ‘Irrigation Project Division’. Seven of the accused are yet to be arrested in the case.

A similar office was also opened in Dahod district, investigations revealed. Co-conspirator and contractor Abu Bakr Saiyyed and Ninama were arrested in the Dahod case for siphoning off government funds from the tribal sub-plan to the tune of Rs 18 crore.

Sources said that the owner of the flat had “leased out” the premises to Rajput in May 2022, after he had introduced himself as a Class-1 government officer of the irrigation department. The source close to the owner said, “The gang completed the legal paperwork for the rental agreement and even paid the monthly rent of Rs 4,000 regularly. The amount was transferred to the bank account of the owner, Abu Bakr Saiyyed, every month.”

The scam was unearthed when the current Project Administrator, IAS officer Sachin Kumar, found that 12 applications had been made in 2023-24 for irrigation projects seeking a grant of Rs 3.74 crore. None of them had been initiated from his office. Kumar instructed a junior clerk of his office, Javid Ibrahim Mankojiya — later arrested in the same case, to lodge an FIR, following which Rajput and Saiyyed along with a government contractor and 11 others were arrested and charge-sheeted.

In the FIR lodged on October 26, 2023, Mankojiya initially sought a probe into the alleged scam worth Rs 4 crore describing it as “a conspiracy hatched in connivance with the former and/or some current officers/employees of our department to extract financial benefit for personal interest while causing a loss to the state treasury…”.

However, when Ninama was arrested in the bogus office investigation in Dahod, the Chhota Udepur SIT found out that the scam had been going on in Bodeli since 2016 and the estimated figure of siphoned funds was Rs 21,15 crore. The SIT said that it has been able to recover over Rs 3 crore of the siphoned funds from various bank accounts used by the accused in their chain of transactions.

The Dahod police, which is also investigating a scam to the tune of Rs 18.6 crore, has booked a total of 15 persons in the case, including five government employees, four outsourced contract employees of the government department and one employee from the Nehru Yuva Kendra. Among the five government officials were Assistant Commissioner of Tribal Development Vishwadeepsinh Gohil, Executive Engineer Ishwar Kolcha and clerk Girish Patel.

The accused in both the Chhota Udepur and Dahod cases have been booked under sections 170 (pretending to hold any particular office as public servant and act in such assumed character), 419 (cheating by personation), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of a valuable security), 468 (committing forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using a forged document as genuine), 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal with intent to commit forgery), 474 (possession of forged documents shown as genuine) and 120(B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. While the Chhota Udepur SIT has filed a 3,431-page chargesheet in the trial court in January 2024, comprising 83 panchnamas and statements of 587 witnesses in the case, Dahod police also filed a 3400-page chargesheet in February this year.

Deputy Superintendent of Police, Dahod, Jagdishsinh Bhandari said that the investigators will also file a supplementary chargesheet shortly.
Rajput died on May 15 at the Chhota Udepur civil hospital where he was rushed from the District Sub-jail following complaints of chest pain.
All other accused arrested in both the cases are out on bail.

Similar cases

10 ‘PMO officials’ busted in 21 months

Kiran Jagdish Patel, a resident of Ahmedabad, allegedly ran a charade posing as ‘Additional Director (Strategy & Campaigns)’ at the PM’s Office (PMO). He conned his way to government offices and did not spare even some IAS officers, said police. He allegedly duped a large section of the J&K civil and security administration before finally being busted in March 2023 after the District Collector of Budgam found out that no such post as ‘Additional Director (Strategy & Campaigns)’ existed at the PMO. Patel has at least six cases filed against him in Gujarat apart from the one in Srinagar and another lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under PMLA. His wife Malini was also booked in a case of cheating along with him. On November 9, the ED said it had filed a prosecution complaint in a Srinagar court against Patel, adding a notice has been issued to the accused to appear before the court on Monday.

The ED said, “…not only did he illicitly avail the security from the administration of the UT of J&K…but also duped gullible Gujarat-based businessmen… by making a false promise to provide business opportunities in…Kashmir.” In September, the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch arrested one Bharat Chhabra from Karnal, Haryana, for allegedly posing as an official of the PMO.

In July, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch arrested six men from Haryana for allegedly posing as officials from the PMO and cheating BJP workers of Rs 12 lakh in the name of investing in a farmhouse. In July, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch booked Rupesh Doshi, a resident of South Bopal, for allegedly impersonating an OSD from the PMO. In January, the CBI filed its chargesheet against Mayank Tiwari, who had allegedly impersonated a PMO official and threatened a doctor.

3 ‘CMO Officials’ in 5 months

On December 4, 2023, the Vadodara Crime Branch, at the Assam-Mizoram border, apprehended Viraj Patel, who had not only allegedly impersonated an official of the Gujarat CMO but also ‘President’ of the GIFT city in Gandhinagar. He was also accused of rape. The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police, in August 2023, arrested astrologer Luvkush Dwivedi, residing in Sanand, for impersonating a senior official of the CMO and threatening GST officials. The same month, Jamnagar Police booked and arrested Nikunj Patel (28), a resident of Ahmedabad. Patel, impersonating a CMO official, had called up the SP, Premsukh Delu, and asked him to release a cybercrime accused.

Fake Customs officer

The Surat Crime Branch, in September this year, arrested Himanshi Rai for impersonating a Customs officer and cheating people with offers of jobs. The unemployed Rai, who previously worked as a driver contracted by the AAI, had allegedly deceived at least six people from Gujarat, Goa and Delhi. Notably, he had even put a board reading ‘Crime Surveillance and Intelligence Council’ on his car.

Fake NSA/Army officer

On November 6, the Junagadh district police arrested one Pravin Solanki for allegedly cheating a man with the promise of getting him a job as a loco pilot in the Indian Railways. Solanki had photos of him in military camouflage of the Indian Army with the shoulder mark declaring he was a Captain attached to the infantry regiment Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (JAK RIF).

He also had forged ID cards of an Army Lieutenant as well as that of Control Commander of the National Security Agency (NSA).
Junagadh Deputy Superintendent of Police Hitesh Dhandhaliya said Solanki had been arrested for cheating the complainant of Rs 3.03 lakh.

Fake IPS officer

On August 16, Surat Police arrested Pradeep Patel, 45, a resident of Kamrej, for impersonating an IPS officer and cheating two real estate builders from Maharashtra and Surat of Rs 31 lakh by luring them to become partners in Gujarat tourism hotels in Surat and Dangs districts.
-Brendan Dabhi