Rajkot: A 54-year-old businessman has lodged a complaint at Gandhigram-2 police station here, accusing a Jasdan man and staff members of a financial company of cheating and forgery for allegedly forging his signature to secure a loan of Rs 25 lakh.According to the complaint, the victim, Bipin Pandya, a businessman from Keshod in Junagadh district, had started a paying guest (PG) hostel business in Vadodara with Akshar alias Akshay Chhayani in Aug 2021. For the venture, the two had submitted their Aadhaar and PAN cards while executing a rental agreement. However, the business failed and the partners officially ended the arrangement and cancelled the rental agreement in Oct 2025.The alleged fraud came to light when Pandya began receiving SMS alerts from a financial company on Aug 14, 2025, about loan instalment payments being processed. When he contacted Chhayani, the latter allegedly claimed that Pandya’s name had been mistakenly linked as a guarantor and assured him that it would be removed within a few days.Suspicious, Pandya conducted his own inquiry at the financial company’s branch in Ahmedabad and discovered that Chhayani and his family members had taken top-up loans totalling Rs 25 lakh.Further investigation revealed that Chhayani and agents of the financial company allegedly misused Pandya’s identity documents from their earlier business venture. They are accused of forging his signature on a Rs 300 stamp paper to prepare a fake “Letter of Guarantee” dated Feb 28, 2025, making him the guarantor for the loan without his knowledge or consent.Based on the complaint, police registered a case relevant under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.
