The office of the DAV Public School’s regional director. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, June 16: Former regional director of DAV Group R.K. Chauhan, a few school officials and land agents, have come under police scrutiny in a land dispute case.

The surveillance comes after J.V. Kulkarni, the present regional director of the group in Bihar zone-1, lodged an FIR on May 18 this year against these persons. They have been charged with fraud in connection with a land dispute, which has caused a loss of about Rs 2.5 crore.

The regional director of DAV Group, J.V. Kulkarni, told The Telegraph: “DAV schools needed some more land for which we were looking for a plot. The owners of the plot around DAV Khagaul were not available. Therefore, agents handled the issue. In 2008-09 the land was registered and the payments were made to people, who were not the actual owners of the land.”

He said the matter came to the fore when the construction of the building began.

“When the construction work of the building began, the original land owners arrived on the scene and claimed that they never sold the land. When the matter was probed, it was found that the documents related to the land deal were forged. After this, the two agents — Arvind Kumar and Upendra Kumar — went missing. Later, on being found they accepted that the land deal was fake. At the same time, they also said they had refunded more than half the amount to then regional director R.K. Chauhan and former principal of DAV Khagaul A.C. Jain.”

Kulkarni said: “Since the DAV management had not received all the papers related to the transaction, I had been called to the Delhi office few months ago with all the documents related to the land and that of the payments. I went there with my legal consultant and then things were reviewed for around a month. An FIR against 14 persons, including Mr Chauhan and Mr Jain, were lodged and an inquiry in this matter is in progress. It is to be verified whether the payments were made intentionally or by mistake.”

Kulkarni said both Upendra Kumar and Arvind Kumar had been arrested and they had said if either of them was released on bail, they would refund the entire amount. “Upendra was released temporarily on bail till June 20 but now he denies the entire matter. Kumar has said that he has already given the whole amount to Arvind Kumar,” he said.

The acting station house officer of Khagaul police station, Harpreet Kaur, said: “An FIR under case number 58/11 has been lodged against 14 people, including the former regional director of DAV Group and the former principal of DAV Khagaul. Those who were involved in the land deal, including the agents, have been named in the FIR. This is a case of forgery and investigation is going on in the matter.”

R.K. Chauhan refused to comment on the matter and on the charges levelled against him. “This is a matter of the court. There is nothing I can say about it,” he said.