Khanna rice mill auction scam: Agent, bank officials booked

An alleged bank-auction scam involving a mortgaged rice mill property in Khanna has brought under scrutiny the suspected role of a commission agent and bank-linked officials accused of undervaluing a prime commercial property to facilitate its auction at a drastically reduced price.

The Khanna police have registered a case against Khanna-based commission agent Harish Kumar Singla, alias Lovely, and officials associated with a nationalised bank under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) pertaining to cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The case pertains to a 14 kanal and 9 marla rice mill property located near Rahon in Khanna, which had been mortgaged with the bank. According to complainant Sunita, a resident of SAS Nagar and sister of property owner Sanjeev Kumar Goyal, the accused manipulated the valuation process by allegedly preparing a fabricated report using photographs and location details of another low-value property.

Police suspect the actual value of the rice mill, said to be worth several crores, was deliberately understated in official records so that the property could be transferred to a preferred buyer at a throwaway price. The complaint states that the property was being auctioned to Harish Kumar Singla for merely ₹1.51 crore.

The investigation gained momentum after it emerged that the photographs attached to the valuation report allegedly belonged to a warehouse owned by one Dharampal Gupta and not the actual rice mill property under auction.

During verification, police confirmed that the images used in the report were of Gupta’s warehouse situated at a different location, while the mortgaged rice mill was located elsewhere.

Police officials believe the case points to a larger pattern in which high-value mortgaged properties are allegedly undervalued through manipulated documents, misleading photographs and incorrect location details before being auctioned to preferred bidders with alleged insider support.

A case has been registered under Sections 318(4) (cheating), 338 (forgery of valuable security or property-related documents), 336(2), 336(3), 340(2) (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the BNS. Further investigation is underway.

This article has been republished from The Hindustan Times.