A clerk at the Panvel District Court, Deepak Mohan Phad, has been arrested for forging signatures to issue fake heirship certificates and court fee challans since 2019, embezzling Rs 3.91 lakh. The fraud was uncovered during a request for a certified copy, revealing deleted case details and prompting an ongoing investigation into a potentially larger scam.
Navi Mumbai: In a shocking case of fraud, a clerk working at the Panvel District Court has been accused of forging magistrates’ signatures to issue fake heirship certificates and court fee challans. The accused, Deepak Mohan Phad, 32, allegedly carried out these illegal activities since 2019 and was arrested last week.
The case first emerged when an advocate applied for a certified copy of a heirship certificate. Court officials discovered that while the heirship case was still pending, a fake certificate bearing forged signatures of court officers and the civil judge had already been issued. Upon further investigation, it was found that case details available online were also deleted.
The fraud didn’t stop there. Officials uncovered the issuance of fake court fee challans in nine cases of heirship certificate applications, amounting to Rs 3.91 lakh.
A police officer stated,
“Court fees were not paid. Instead, these were embezzled by the accused, who issued fake challans. It is suspected that there would be more cases of fake challans since the scam was going on since 2019. The matter is under investigation.”
Initially, an FIR was registered on November 4 against an “unidentified” individual by Sanchita Santhosh Gharat, superintendent of the Civil Court Senior Division. Following police investigations, Phad was identified as the culprit and arrested on Sunday.
With the accused identified, a second FIR was registered on December 23 by assistant superintendent Pravin Dhairyarao Bandivadekar. Both cases were lodged under sections 336S (forgery), 337 (forgery of court records), 338 (forgery of valuable documents), 339 (possession of forged documents), and 341 (counterfeiting seals or instruments) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
Police investigations revealed that Phad had been forging heirship certificate order copies and creating fake court fee challans to dupe applicants. The accused allegedly embezzled court fees by claiming to have paid them and instead issued fraudulent challans.
The investigation also uncovered a systematic approach to deleting case details from the court’s online database, thereby erasing any evidence of pending cases.
Officials suspect the scam to be much larger as it dates back to 2019. Internal investigations indicate that multiple applicants of heirship certificates may have been victimized over the years. The ongoing probe aims to uncover the full extent of the fraud and identify other potential victims.
The authorities are continuing their investigation to gather evidence, identify other forged documents, and determine if more individuals were involved in the scam.
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