2 weeks Ago By Payal Dhawan
Ludhiana: Police have arrested Gyaneshwar Sood , the brother of prominent interior designer Yogeshwar Sood , along with their aide Saurabh Madaan, for allegedly providing false evidence during the investigation of a Rs 1.31-crore fraud-and-forgery case that Mathura-based jewellers had filed against the Sood brothers. The Sood brothers are accused of donating a 4-kilogram gold "chhatra" (sacred umbrella), embedded with diamonds, to the Badrinath shrine in Uttarakhand in May 2018.
However, they allegedly failed to pay the jeweller, its maker, and instead provided false evidence to frame the jeweller in a cheating case. The Sadar police have registered a new first-information report (FIR) against Gyaneshwar Sood, his brother Yogeshwar Sood, both of Citizen Enclave , Barewal, and their aide Saurabh Madaan of Jagat Nagar, Jodhewal area. They face charges under sections 193 (punishment for false evidence), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The FIR was based on a complaint by Praveen Kumar, a jeweller from Mathura. The FIR was lodged based on the findings of a special investigation team (SIT). The case goes back to 2018, when the Sood brothers organized a grand event in Ludhiana to display the gold chhatra before sending it by helicopter to Badrinath.
The chhatra replaced a 600-year-old sacred umbrella donated by the Holkar King of Indore. Praveen Kumar alleged that the Sood brothers had commissioned the chhatra for Rs 1.31 crore but not paid for it.
After a complaint was filed against the brothers in Mathura, Yogeshwar Sood was arrested for cheating on Feb 20, 2021. Two days later, the Sood brothers lodged an FIR against Praveen Kumar and his brothers, Prabhat and Ashok Kumar, in Ludhiana, claiming that the Mathura jewellers had hired them for interior design work at their Mathura house but not paid them Rs 95 lakh of the agreed Rs 9.5 crore fee.
In their complaint, the Soods alleged that they had met the jeweller brothers through a priest from Vrindavan in 2016. The jeweller brothers hired them for interior design work, and the Soods started the project after receiving a partial payment. According to the Soods, in April 2018, the priest, with the help of several donors, had the chhatra made by the Mathura jewellers, which was then offered at Badrinath temple .
The Soods claimed they were asked to arrange a function for the chhatra in Ludhiana, which they did. News of the 4-kg chhatra was also published in several newspapers. The priest and Praveen Kumar reportedly attended the function, with Sood claiming he arranged accommodation for them in a Ludhiana hotel using his own ID proof.
The Sood brothers alleged that the jewellers had filed a false complaint after they had refused to clear the outstanding Rs 95 lakh. They also claimed that the jewellers had misused Sood’s ID proof to forge a bill for the chhatra. According to the latest FIR, the Sood brothers forged two documents during the investigation.
The first was a record allegedly from the Badrinath Shrine, claiming the chhatra was donated by "a group of donors" rather than the Sood brothers. They also claimed to have obtained this document through a Right to Information (RTI) request. The second document was a "house renovation contract" between the Sood brothers and the Mathura jewellers, with a Vrindavan-based priest allegedly signing as a witness.
The SIT found both documents to be forgeries. Inspector Harshveer Singh, the station house officer (SHO) of Sadar and a member of the SIT, said, "The SIT obtained records from the Char Dham Devasthan Management Board in Uttarakhand, which confirmed the chhatra was donated by the Sood brothers. The document the Sood brothers claimed to have received via RTI was also forged, as was the house renovation contract.
The priest did not sign it as a witness." Police arrested Gyaneshwar Sood and Saurabh Madaan on Sunday, and they were presented in court on Monday. The local court granted a single-day police custody for the accused.
Speaking to TOI on the behalf of Sood brothers, one of their family friends, Sanjeev Kumar, said: "Saurabh, a journalist friend of the Sood brothers had secured details of the chhatra donors from Uttarakhand’s Char Dham Devasthan Management Board under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, and based on that, we stand by our statements that those documents that the city police claim to be forged are genuine. The RTI reply received via email also corroborates that.” The friend of the Sood brothers also claimed that: “The SIT had not asked us for the original copy of the RTI details for verificiation.
The Soods had even filed a civil suit against the Mathura jewellers for the pending amount.”.
