Former union minister and Rajasthan Congress leader Bhanwar Jitendra Singh has been caught in a forgery case, as he is accused of forging signatures to grab properties. The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bundi district of Rajasthan has issued an arrest warrant against him and two others namely Shree Nath Hada and Bijendra Singh in a forgery case. Hada is a former zila pramukh of Bundi. The court said that Jitendra Singh and two others tried to deceive the court by submitting a fake trust deed as genuine to gain unfair benefit.
The court has taken cognizance against Congress leader and others under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC. The court has ordered district police to arrest and present them before the court on January 6, 2022.
Jitendra Singh has been accused of forging the signature of his uncle Ranjeet Singh to grab his properties. Though the court issued the order on November 18, the lawyer of petitioner Avinash Chandra Chandna received a certified copy of the order on November 26.
During the UPA II, Jitendra Singh served as union minister of State for Home, union minister of state for Defence, and the independent charge of Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports. Sonia Gandhi had appointed him as AICC general secretary as the in-charge of Assam.
Battle over the wealth of Bundi royal family
The matter is related to a property dispute in the erstwhile royal family of Bundi. Maharaja Bahadur Singh was the last king of the Bundi royal family, and he had two children namely Ranjeet Singh and Mahendra Kumari. Jitendra Singh was born into this royal family of Alwar, to Yuvraj Pratap Singh and Mahendra Kumari. Thus, he is the nephew of Ranjeet Singh.
In 1986, Mahendra Kumari had filed a case in Bundi court asking for the division of the properties after Ranjeet Singh claimed the entire property via the rule of primogeniture.
Ranjeet Singh had married but had no children while Mahendra Kumari gave birth to Jitendra Singh and Meenakshi. Mahendra Kumari died in 2002 but the case kept dragging on and Jitendra Singh took up the case on behalf of his mother.
In 2005, the property was divided equally between Ranjeet Singh and Jitendra Singh by the court. But Ranjeet Singh appealed against the court order and got a stay. Eventually, Ranjeet Singh also died in 2010.
After Ranjeet Singh passed away, Jitendra claimed that his uncle had signed a trust deed in May 2008 and committed all his property towards his ‘Kul Devi’ Ashapura Mataji in the form of a trust. Jitendra Singh claimed that his uncle had appointed him as the chief ‘sewayat’ (one who serves an idol at a temple) or a trustee and Shri Nath Singh as an assistant sewayat.
In 2017, Delhi resident Avinash Chandra Chandna challenged this trust deed and accused Jitendra Singh of committing forgery. Chandna claimed that he was close to Ranjeet Singh and his family, and Ranjeet Singh had transferred his properties to him in March 2009. Chandra had stated that Ranjeet Singh used to stay at his residence in Delhi where he took his last breath.
In December 2017, Chandra lodged an FIR against Jitendra Singh in Bundi.
Jitendra Singh approached the Rajasthan High Court against the FIR. In February 2018, the High Court rejected his quashing petition stating that had Ranjeet Singh issued such a document, either Jitendra Singh or Ranjeet Singh would have mentioned it before the High Court during the hearing of this matter in December 2008. It reflected from the judgment that the trust deed was bogus.
During the police investigation, Jitendra Singh did not produce the original copy of the trust deed to the police. He produced a report by a private forensic laboratory that authenticated the trust deed as genuine. On the basis of that report, Bundi police had closed this case in favour of Jitendra Singh. Chandna had challenged the police investigation.
