Mumbai: Man booked for illegally taking over handicapped PCO booth

The PCO booth outside SNDT college in Santacruz West; (right) Rajeshwari Saroj, who has been running the booth since 2015. Pics/Shadab Khan

The DN Nagar police have booked one Manoj Parshuram Ayare for allegedly transferring a handicapped PCO booth at Santacruz West to himself using fake documents after the death of the person who used to run it. mid-day highlighted the incident in its April 2 report ‘Handicapped Mumbai widow denied PCO booth'. The BMC's K West licensing department also conducted an internal inquiry against the officers involved in the crime.

Rajeshwari Saroj, the wife of the deceased, Rajkumar, is running the shop, and the licensing department is transferring the booth to her.

Rajeshwari told mid-day, "I want the licence of my late husband's shop to be transferred to me. All BMC officers should be punished. Officials had visited the shop and conducted verification, but they didn't do their job properly and transferred my husband's shop to someone else."

The case

According to the police, the complainant is Sunil Dalvi, 57, the chief licensing officer from the department. The booth, located outside SNDT college, was being run by Rajkumar with a valid licence until he died due to health issues in 2015. Since then, Rajeshwari has been running the shop.

According to the MMC Act 1885, section 313 (A)(B), if a stall owner dies, the heir apparent should transfer it to themselves within six months by following a certain procedure. However, Rajeshwari didn't do this.

A police officer said, "On October 15, 2022, Rajeshwari submitted an application to the BMC to transfer her deceased husband's shop to her name. The application was received by Chief Licence Officer Sunil Rama Chaudhary and Anil Tukaram Kaap, an officer. They replied to Rajeshwari that the documents submitted for transferring the shop were not sufficient and sent a letter on April 5, 2023, asking for more documents."

On September 12, 2023, this case was taken over by the newly appointed Dalvi as Chaudhary and Kaap had been transferred, and an officer, Avinash Kamble, was appointed to carry out the investigation. Kamble sent a letter to Rajeshwari on December 28, 2023, asking for more documents, but Saroj didn't reply to it.

Modus operandi

Meanwhile, Ayare transferred the shop to himself by submitting fake affidavits, altered photos of the owner standing inside the shop and a promissory note with forged signatures stating that Rajeshwari was selling her husband's booth to Ayare.

Finally, on March 13, 2024, Rajeshwari complained to the licensing department and Santacruz police station about Ayare defrauding her.

However, the Santacruz police didn't register an FIR immediately and Rajeshwari sought the help of Anup Yadav, who runs a juice centre in her village.

Yadav said, "We met Additional Municipal Commissioner Dr Ashwini Joshi last week, and she helped us register an FIR. Joshi called all officers investigating this matter and instructed them to register the FIR as soon as possible."

As Ayare had submitted the fake documents to a BMC officer based in Andheri, the DN Nagar police have registered the FIR against him under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

March 13
Day Rajeshwari complained to authorities