Forged Power of Attorney, Ignored CBI Findings: How a Disputed Dehradun Land Deal Kept Moving Forward

DEHRADUN — Central Bureau of Investigation documents and a forensic handwriting examination reviewed by DNL show that a 1998 Power of Attorney underpinning a family’s claim to over a hectare and a half of land in Mauja Johari, Dehradun, was very likely forged — and that the original registered owners told CBI investigators, on record, that the signatures were not theirs. Despite this, the disputed transfer has continued to move through the revenue and mutation system for nearly two decades, with the land now under active claim by the family of Sanjay Singh, owner of Doon Para Medical College — including his father Dariya Singh (through whom the disputed Power of Attorney was exercised), his mother Omwati, and his brother Ajay.

The original purchase

Village land records reviewed by CBI show that in 1983, three people — Smt. Usha Gupta, Smt. Malti Devi, and Smt. Kirti Verma — jointly purchased 3.81 acres of land (old Khasra No. 222/1, later reorganized into Khasra Nos. 413, 434 and 436) in Village Mauja Johari from one Sh. Gangbahadur, for a stated consideration of Rs. 40,000. The three women’s husbands — Mahendra Narayan Gupta, Rajendra Kumar Singh and Narendra Kumar Verma, all then posted at Kendriya Vidyalaya, F.R.I., Dehradun or ONGC — negotiated the purchase on their behalf. Their names were mutated into the revenue record in 1985.

By their own account to CBI, the families never lived in Dehradun again after 1986 and treated the land purely as an investment. In the early 1990s, one of the husbands, Rajendra Kumar Singh, told the others that a buyer — Sh. Dariya Singh — had come forward and paid an advance. Usha Gupta and Mahendra Narayan Gupta both told CBI they received Rs. 2,70,000 in cash as their share around that time and gave verbal consent to the sale, expecting the balance and formal documentation to follow.

That formal documentation — specifically, a General Power of Attorney dated 09.10.1998, which is the instrument later used to transfer the land — is where the story turns.

What the CBI witnesses say

In statements recorded under Section 161 CrPC on 21 August 2023 (marked PW-12 and PW-14 in the case file), both Usha Gupta and her husband Mahendra Narayan Gupta were separately shown the Agreement to Sale dated 17.06.1990 and the General Power of Attorney dated 09.10.1998. Both stated, independently and in near-identical language:

“The signatures on these documents are not mine” [Usha Gupta] / “not of my wife” [Mahendra Narayan Gupta].

Both also told the CBI that: - They never returned the Rs. 2,70,000 they received, or received any further payment. - They never contacted the co-owning families or made any attempt to check on or reclaim the property in the roughly 35 years since. - They have “no knowledge whether the sale deed has been executed or not.”

In other words, the two named sellers deny executing the very document that put the land into the buyer’s family’s hands — while acknowledging they took part-payment and never followed up.

What the forensic report says

A separate forensic document examination (Ref. HW/30-2022/5470, dated 15 May 2022) by Ajay Mohan Paliwal, a Dehradun-based handwriting and questioned-documents examiner, was commissioned to compare Usha Gupta’s signature on a 1984 mutation-case affidavit (treated as the standard/verified signature, marked D1) against her signature on the 1998 Power of Attorney (marked Q1 and Q4).

The examiner’s findings [note: this report was commissioned by Sudhir Kumar Windlass for a related but separate dispute — see below — not by the Gupta family or CBI; that provenance should be disclosed in the story]: - The two sets of signatures show “differing” writing skill, writing movement, speed, pen-holding habit, letter formation and line quality — differences the report characterizes as “material in nature” and not explainable by natural variation. - Signature Q1 shows an “uneven flow of strokes… showing hesitation associated with tremors of fraud” and a “suspicious break in the continuity of motion.” - Signature Q4 shows similar hesitation marks plus “excess of deposits… showing repaired portion” — i.e., retouching. - The examiner’s stated opinion: the 1998 Power of Attorney signatures “are completely different from” the verified 1984 signature and are “product of forgery.” - By contrast, the report notes the 1984 affidavit signatures of all three original women appear to have been “written by one person” (i.e., internally consistent with each other), reinforcing that the 1984 document is the more reliable baseline.

A separate legal problem, even if the POA were genuine

There is a second line of challenge to the 1998 Power of Attorney that doesn’t depend on the forgery finding at all. At the time the POA was executed, land outside municipal limits — which this parcel was — could not lawfully be transferred through a Power of Attorney granted to someone who was not a blood relation of the owner. Dariya Singh, the attorney-holder who went on to negotiate and effect the transfer to Omwati, Sanjay and Ajay, was not a blood relative of Usha Gupta, Malti Devi or Kirti Verma.

On this reading, even if a court were to set aside the forgery allegation entirely and accept that the three women did sign the document, the Power of Attorney would still be invalid — because it purported to authorize exactly the kind of transfer the law did not permit a non-relative attorney-holder to carry out on non-municipal land. [This needs a precise citation before it runs — the specific section of the applicable law (likely the UP Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act, given that Windlass’s own filing cites Sections 152 and 154 of the same Act to argue a different POA was void, or the relevant Revenue Code/Registration Act provision in force in 1998) should be identified and quoted. Worth asking your lawyer or the source who raised this point which specific provision they’re relying on, so the story can cite it rather than assert it.]

How the mutation record moved anyway

Testimony from the Registrar Kanoongo, Tehsil Sadar, Dehradun (marked PW-27, recorded 21 October 2023), traces the paper trail through the khatauni (land record) itself: - Fasli 1391–1396 (1983–88): owners recorded as Gangbahadur, later replaced by Usha Gupta, Malti Devi and “Kela Verma” [likely a record spelling of Kirti/Keerti Verma] per a 1985 mutation order. - Fasli 1410–1415 (roughly 2002–2007): the same three women continue as owners of record. - Mutation Case No. 1251, order dated 10.04.2007: the sellers’ names — Usha Gupta, Malti Devi and Keerti Verma, acting “through POA to Sh. Dariya Singh” — are removed, and Smt. Omwati, Sh. Sanjay and Sh. Ajay are entered as owners. - The witness confirms the underlying 2007 mutation file does not itself contain a copy of the sale deed relied upon — he states this is standard practice for that era, since sale deeds were returned to the parties after mutation — meaning the file trail runs through the Power of Attorney, not a deed the registrar’s office retained a copy of. - Fasli 1416–1421: the land briefly passes to a Sh. Ravi Dayal by a November 2011 order, which is then cancelled in January 2012 and ownership reverts to Omwati/Sanjay/Ajay — indicating the title itself was contested and flip-flopped administratively even before the CBI inquiry.

So the chain the current claimants rely on is: 1998 POA (which the named principal, Usha Gupta, told CBI she never signed, and which a forensic examiner separately flagged as forged) → 2007 mutation → present-day claim of ownership and possession.

A parallel pattern in an adjoining dispute

The forensic report above was originally commissioned in a separate but closely related dispute: an objection filed with the Additional District Magistrate (E), Dehradun, on 20 March 2023 by Sudhir Kumar Windlass, who separately purchased adjoining land in the same village from Gangbahadur’s legal heirs. In that filing, Windlass alleges that Sanjay Singh and Col. Soban Singh Danu attempted to claim land inside his boundary wall based on the same disputed 2004 sale deed/POA chain, and that a Special Investigation Team report subsequently found the revenue entries “forged… based on fraud.” [This is a different, adjoining set of khasra numbers from the Gupta/Verma parcel above — the story should be careful not to conflate the two disputes, even though the pattern — a Dariya Singh/Sanjay Singh-linked POA later found suspect — repeats.]