DDA housing scam accused sent to judicial custody

New Delhi, Jan 18 (IANS) A city court Sunday remanded to judicial custody Laxmi Naryan Meena, one of the four people arrested for the irregularities in the allotment of over 5,000 dwellings by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) last year.

Sleuths of Delhi Police's elite Economic Offence Wing (EOW) questioned 10 people for their alleged role. These people are suspected to have helped a cartel of real estate agents in filing applications for over 2,000 flats under the reserved category on the basis of fraudulently obtained details.

Meena, first to be arrested in the case, was sent to judicial custody till Jan 31 by Metropolitan Magistrate Neeraj Gaur.

According to EOW sources, Manish, a chartered accountant, was being questioned in the capital while Alok Kumar, an accountant, was being interrogated at Rajasthan's Jhunjhunu.

The EOW is also planning to dispatch teams to some northeast states and Jharkhand after their investigations showed that the accused had fraudulently obtained details of applicants from these states.

Police teams have already visited Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh and Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, from where the scam was unearthed.

Police have so far received 10 complaints from Jhunjhunu about allotments of flats to people with fake identity.

When contacted, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Amulya Patnaik told IANS no fresh arrest was made in the past two days and further investigations are under way.

'Our teams are working and we cannot share any operational details with media,' he said.

Retired DDA officer M.L. Gautam, real estate agent Raju Ram and Deepak Kumar, who allegedly blew the lid off the case, have been arrested so far.