Mumbai: The Panvel City police have arrested a clerk of the Panvel district court for allegedly forging the order passed to issue heirship certificates using the signature of the magistrates and court stamps. The clerk, Deepak Mohan Phad, 32, is also accused of issuing fake court fee receipts.
In the investigations, police also found that Phad has been allegedly involved in embezzling lakhs of rupees by creating fake challans for heirship certificates filed in the court. Last month, an advocate applied to the court to obtain a certified copy of an order in the civil inquiry case no. 113/2022.
During a verification by the assistant superintendent of civil court, Pravin Bandiwadekar, it was found that the application was not recorded in the register for certified copies. In the application related to obtaining an heirship certificate for the late Narayandas Chhote Lal Gupta’s property, it was found that the case was pending in the court of the civil judge junior division, Panvel.
Further verification revealed that the order on the certified copy application bore the forged signatures of the civil judge junior division, Panvel, and Pravin Bandiwadekar, as well as counterfeit court seals. Upon checking this fake order against the court’s computerised system, it was found that the case had been deleted.
The first case was registered on November 4 by Sanchita Santosh Gharat, superintendent of civil court, senior division, against an unidentified person. “In the investigaApplication filed, Advocate seeks a certified copy of the civil inquiry case in Panvel court. Forgery detected. The assistant superintendent discovered forged signatures, fake court seals, and deleted case records. Case filed Complaint filed against unidentified persons for forgery. Identification Investigation reveals clerk Deepak Mohan Phad as the suspect Arrest.
Phad was apprehended and remanded to five-day police custody options. We found that Phad was responsible for the forgery, and we arrested him and presented him before the court on Monday, which granted us police custody for five days,” senior police inspector Nitin Thackeray said. A second case was registered after the court discovered Phad had issued fake court fee challans for nine heirship certificate applications.
Investigations revealed he had been forging challans for these applications since 2019, embezzling the money paid by applicants. Phad allegedly issued around 70 fake court fee challans, with the total embezzled amount likely running into lakhs. Police are still verifying the exact amount.
