Court changes warrant issued against Cong leader Jitendra Singh in trust deed forgery case to bailable one

The district court here on Thursday changed the arrest warrant issued against Congress leader Bhanwar Jitendra Singh in a case of cheating and forgery of a trust deed for allegedly taking over the properties of the erstwhile Bundi royal family to a bailable one.

Taking cognisance of the case lodged under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the chief judicial magistrate's (CJM) court in Bundi, on November 18, 2021, ordered the issuance of warrants against the former Union minister, his father-in-law Bijendra Singh, and Shri Nath Singh Hada, former Bundi zila pramukh, who has since passed away.

The CJM's court had ordered the three to be arrested and produced before it by January 6, 2022. However, Singh, a Congress general secretary, had moved the district judge's court and filed a revision petition against the warrant. The district court on Thursday partially accepted Singh's revision petition while giving some relief to the petitioner by changing the warrant into a bailable one, Public Prosecutor Yogesh Yadav said. The court, however, justified the cognisance taken by the CJM's court in the matter, he added. On the basis of a complaint from Avinash Kumar Chandna, a resident of Safdarjung Enclave in New Delhi who claimed to be a friend of late Ranjeet Singh, the son of late Bahadur Singh, the last king of the erstwhile Bundi royal family, the Bundi city police lodged the case in December 2017 against Jitendra Singh, Bijendra Singh and Shri Nath Singh Hada.

The complainant had alleged that Jitendra Singh, along with Bijendra Singh and Hada, had hatched a conspiracy to take over the properties of Ranjeet Singh, who did not have a child.

He had also alleged that Jitendra Singh, the son of Ranjeet Singh's sister Mahendra Kumari, forged his maternal uncle's signature on a back date of May 2008 to transfer his properties to himself through a forged trust deed.

Chandna also claimed that Ranjeet Singh had stayed with him in his Delhi house till his last breath in 2010 and transferred all his properties to him in 2009.

Chandna had alleged that in order to take over the properties of his maternal uncle, Jitendra Singh created the Kul Devi Ashapura Mataji Trust and through a forged signature in the trust deed, committed all his property to the trust headed by him as the ''mukhya sewayat'' and was assisted by Hada, the ''sahayak sewayat''.

The police, however submitted a final report in the matter on the basis of its investigation, following which Chandna challenged it in the CJM's court.

Taking cognisance of the matter in November 2021 and issuing arrest warrants against the three, the CJM's court had said the accused had tried to deceive the court by submitting a fake trust deed while presenting it as genuine.

The CJM's court had also observed that Singh had not provided the original copy of the trust deed to the investigating officer, but submitted a report issued by a private forensic laboratory, declaring the trust deed as genuine.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)