BHUBANESWAR: A Bhubaneswar court has ordered a person to pay Rs 90 lakh in compensation to a 75-year-old woman for cheating her in a land deal 12 years back. The court of sub divisional magistrate (SDJM) also handed Saroj Kumar Tarasia simple imprisonment of 18 months. If he failed to pay within the stipulated time, Tarasia will have to undergo imprisonment for another five months. Even if he undergoes the sentence, he will have to pay the compensation, the court ruled.
In November 2011, Tarasia approached Indira Pattanaik, proprietor of Chakadola Enterprises along with lease deed, allotment and authorisation letters of Idco plots 66 and 77/1 at Industrial Estate in Khurda. The plots were registered in the name of Naresh Singhal who belonged to Haryana’s Faridabad.
Tarasia told Pattanaik that Singhal had authorised him to sell the two plots with the existing infrastructure. He lured her to purchase the two plots within three months and agreed to execute the deal for `77.40 lakh including his brokerage charges. She paid him the money and he assured her to the transfer the plots in her name. When Tarasia delayed to execute the deal, she became suspicious and contacted Singhal, proprietor of M/s Krishna Steel Corporation in Faridabad and owner of the two plots in Khurda.
However, Singhal told her he had not authorised anyone to sell his plots. Pattanaik later came to know that all the documents were forged by Tarasia and he had faked signatures of Singhal. After much persuasion, Tarasia returned `30 lakh to the victim and assured her to refund the rest. He issued cheques of `47.40 lakh on different occasions but she was unable to get her money back. In February 2014, Pattanaik sent Tarasia a legal notice. As he did not return the money, the victim approached the court.
“Tarasia harassed Pattanaik for about 10 years for which the SDJM court awarded him imprisonment and ordered to pay the compensation too. This is for the first time in recent years that a court ordered a convict to pay such a huge amount of compensation,” said her advocate Chittaranjan Dash.