After government office and toll plaza, 'fake court' busted in Gujarat was 'passing judgments' for five years
As unbelievable as it may sound, a conman was caught in Gujarat for running a fake court. The Gujarat Police have arrested a man from Gandhinagar, who ran a fake court that passed bogus orders in land dispute-related cases.??
Court set-up, fake staff and lawyers
According to the police, the accused, identified as Morris Samuel Christian, posed as a court-appointed official arbitrator and had a court-like setup in his office.?
He even had his accomplices stand in as court staff or lawyers to create the impression that the proceedings were genuine.?The accused used to take a specific amount from his clients as fees for solving their cases and delivering a judgment in their favour.??
What makes this con job even more 'impressive' is the fact that the 'fake court' had been functioning for at least five years.??
How the fake judge was busted
The fake court was busted after the accused gave a 'judgment' in a land dispute case related to a piece of government land under the district collector.??
A private individual had also staked a claim to the land, and the accused, pretending to be a court-appointed official arbitrator, passed a judgment in his favour.??
In the 'order,' the fake judge directed the collector to add his client's name to the revenue records of that land. Going one step further, the accused, through another lawyer, filed an appeal in the city civil court and attached the fraudulent order passed by him.??
But this time, the fake judge ran out of luck, and the 'real' court found out that the accused was neither an arbitrator nor was the order of the tribunal genuine.??
The accused has been arrested and booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 170 (pretending to hold any office as a public servant) and 419 (cheating by personation).??
Fake government office
Last year, a fake government office was busted in Chhota Udepur district of Gujarat, where a conman swindled around Rs 4 crores in government funds while posing as a bureaucrat.??
Also read:?Gujarat Conman Sets Up 'Fake Govt Office', Arrested After Getting Rs 4 Crore Grants Since 2021
Fake toll plaza
In 2023, another similar, shocking scam surfaced from Gujarat¡¯s Morbi district, where a group of villagers had set up a fake toll plaza. The fake toll plaza continued to function for 12 years, and the scammers managed to swindle an estimated Rs 75 crore from vehicles as toll.
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