Thursday, February 11, 2010
NEW DELHI: Indian President Pratibha Patil's husband has been accused of illegally procuring land belonging to a farmer in western India, reports said Thursday.
The allegations came to light when a court in the president's home state of Maharashtra ordered the names of Patil's husband Devisingh Shekhawat, and five other family members, to be struck off the local land records, the India news agency reported.
The order came in response to a petition filed by farmer Kishore Bansod, who said the Shekhawats had fraudulently added their names to the title deed of a 3.2 acre (1.3 hectare) site he had refused to sell them.
“The Shekhawats own almost 200 acres in the village and were interested in owning this land too,” Bansod's lawyer was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
“My client wasn't willing to sell the land. So the Shekhawats got it fraudulently transferred in their names.”
But Shekhawat rubbished the charges of fraud saying: “The land officers measured the land in a wrong manner and showed it as ours when my father bought it.” This is not the first time Patil has been embarrassed by accusations of corruption.
NEW DELHI: Indian President Pratibha Patil's husband has been accused of illegally procuring land belonging to a farmer in western India, reports said Thursday.
The allegations came to light when a court in the president's home state of Maharashtra ordered the names of Patil's husband Devisingh Shekhawat, and five other family members, to be struck off the local land records, the India news agency reported.
The order came in response to a petition filed by farmer Kishore Bansod, who said the Shekhawats had fraudulently added their names to the title deed of a 3.2 acre (1.3 hectare) site he had refused to sell them.
“The Shekhawats own almost 200 acres in the village and were interested in owning this land too,” Bansod's lawyer was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
“My client wasn't willing to sell the land. So the Shekhawats got it fraudulently transferred in their names.”
But Shekhawat rubbished the charges of fraud saying: “The land officers measured the land in a wrong manner and showed it as ours when my father bought it.” This is not the first time Patil has been embarrassed by accusations of corruption.
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