Nagpur: The city’s most notorious land mafia, Dilip Shivdas Gwalbanshi, has once again been exposed in a sensational land grab case involving 6.72 acres of prime land in Gorewada, valued between Rs 35-40 crore.
Already tainted as the prime accused in massive land acquisition scams in Gorewada and Borgaon and earlier booked under the stringent MCOCA, Gwalbanshi is now at the centre of another fraud unearthed by the police, nearly 11 years after the bogus registry was executed.
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10 Sept 2025
According to police, the land originally belonged to Shankar Jadhav, father of complainant Pramila Gaikwad, a resident of Ganeshpeth. Gwalbanshi allegedly lured Pramila’s brother, Dinesh, into the conspiracy and, with the help of his associates, placed accused Ravindra Tidke as a dummy, impersonating the late Shankar Jadhav. A forged certificate, purportedly issued on a corporator’s letterhead, was attached to the property documents to establish Tidke’s fake identity. On this basis, Gwalbanshi allegedly registered 6.72 acres of land in his name in 2014 and later mutated ownership documents accordingly.
Despite Pramila, her sister Sushila, and brother Ramesh holding valid documents, the fraud went undetected for years. After repeated complaints went unheard, she approached the Economic Offences Wing (EOW). Acting on directives of Commissioner of Police Dr. Ravinder Singal, the EOW confirmed the fraud, forcing Rana Pratap Nagar police to finally book Gwalbanshi and his accomplices.
Those named in the FIR include: Dilip Shivdas Gwalbanshi, Qazi Nisaruddin Niauddin (Cantonment), Khalid Naseer Ahmed Ansari (Badi Masjid, Kamptee), Pradeep Samarthrao Gaikwad (Indira Nagar, Jattarodi), Dinesh Shankar Jadhav (Sawali, Kalmeshwar), Ravindra Yadavrao Tidke (Sawali, Kalmeshwar).
They face charges of cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy under various sections of the IPC.
Sources revealed that Gwalbanshi carved out an illegal layout on the grabbed land, sold multiple plots, and many buyers have already built houses. Shockingly, he is also suspected to have sold the same land to another party, for which another case of cheating is likely to follow.
In a separate incident, Gwalbanshi has also been accused of encroaching on an industrialist’s land in Borgaon, where a fresh complaint has been lodged at Gittikhadan police station.
While the fraudulent registration in 2014 estimated the land’s worth at Rs 14 crore, its present market value is pegged at nearly Rs 40 crore. The scandal once again exposes how Gwalbanshi and his network of forgers, touts, and middlemen managed to illegally grab prime land across Nagpur, leaving rightful owners in a prolonged battle for justice.
Gwalbanshi is already facing several cases of land grabbing in city. Earlier, the then Commissioner of Police K Venkatesham had even formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) against him and provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were also applied in earlier cases.
