Man held under land grabbing Act

Vadodara: A day after four persons were detained by Vadodara rural police for occupying a farmer’s land illegally, another case under the land grabbing law was registered at Padra police station.

The complainant Paresh Patel, who owns one-bigha agricultural land in Padra, lodged a complaint against Sameer Patel as the latter tried taking possession of the land without paying the entire amount for the land and signing a sale deed.

Paresh said that in December 2018, he had finalized a deal to sell the land to Sameer for Rs 10 lakh. A bill of sale was registered between the duo as Sameer paid Rs 5.5 lakh. After the payment of remaining amount, a final sale deed was to be registered.

For almost a year, Sameer did not make the payment and as Paresh was in need of money, he rented out the land to another farmer for three years. In December last year, Sameer started fencing work around the land. When Paresh confronted him, Sameer said that he had taken over the land and will not pay the remaining amount. Instead, he asked Paresh to pay Rs 30 lakh to cancel the bill of sale which they had registered. He also threatened Paresh to not return to the land following which Paresh had approached police.

On Sunday, Sameer was arrested after the offence was registered.