Kanpur: A court in Kanpur on Tuesday rejected the bail application of a man accused of defrauding his neighbour of Rs 18 lakh on the pretext of getting his land acquired by the Kanpur Development Authority (KDA) for Rs 5 crore.According to assistant district govt counsel (ADGC) Vinod Tripathi, the accused, Ranjan Shukla, and his wife, Anisha, allegedly persuaded their neighbour, Sundar Singh, to route the proposed land acquisition through them.Tripathi told the court that the victim, who allegedly suffers from mental instability, was informed by the accused that he would have to deposit Rs 18 lakh as income tax to facilitate the acquisition of his land by the KDA.Believing the proposal to be genuine, Singh allegedly handed over a cheque of Rs 18 lakh to Shukla.The prosecution further submitted that Shukla later provided Singh with a fake bank deposit receipt showing Rs 4.17 crore had been credited to his account. However, bank records revealed that no such transaction had taken place.Singh also received three letters purportedly issued by the KDA regarding the land deal. However, when he approached the authority for verification, he was informed that no such letters had been issued and that the documents were forged.In her order, presiding judge Nisha Srivastava observed that considering the nature of the allegations and the material placed on record, there was a possibility that the accused could misuse the liberty of bail if released.“Therefore, without commenting on the merits of the case, the bail application is liable to be dismissed,” the court observed.
