Retired assistant housing commissioner of Meerut, VK Chaudhary, involved in a land scam of over Rs 300 crore and having about a dozen criminal cases against him, was finally arrested by Meerut police in the state capital on Friday morning.
He was later taken to Meerut for producing him before the court and getting him on remand for further grilling.
Chaudhary, also an accused in National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam in UP, was arrested from his Gomti Nagar bungalow in Lucknow by a Meerut police team led by Crime Branch inspector Indrapal Singh.
As per reports, Chaudhary, during his tenure as assistant housing commissioner in Meerut in 2004, indulged in irregularities to transfer 52 acres of land and registered it in the name of Indraprastha Estate Sahkari Awas Samiti in the revenue records. The scam was estimated at about Rs 300 crore.
Besides Chaudhary, the then cooperative officer (housing) in Meerut, Raj Kumar, was also involved in the scam.
Land mafia Satyapal Singh, Deshwal, Rajmohan, RPS Chaudhary, who organised the society, connived to transfer the land illegally.
The accused issued fake registration certificate to the society, when the said organisation was registered on March 18, 1985. The certificate was issued by Omkar Yadav, the then assistant housing commissioner-cum-assistant registrar of Cooperative Society.
After the matter came to the knowledge of then Meerut Divisional Commissioner Prabhat Kumar, he ordered a high-level probe. Later, the matter was filed with Pallavpuram court after which an order was issued in 2015 to register a criminal case against Chaudhary and others.
The Meerut police were asked to probe the case and initiate legal proceedings against the accused.
After three years of investigation, Meerut police finally arrested Chaudhary from Lucknow.