Gujarat’s fake courtroom scam exposed

Here's how a Gujarat man duped people with false promises of land ownership by posing as judge...

Transcript

00:00This guy might look like a judge, but he's not. And his courtroom might look real, but it's not.

00:05Morris Samuel Christian from Gujarat allegedly set up a fake court and pretended to be a judge

00:10for over 5 years. According to the police, he transformed his office in Gandhinagar into a

00:16courtroom. There, he would listen to people's arguments and issue orders favouring those who

00:21paid him a decent amount. To make it seem more believable, he even had people act as court

00:27lawyers. It all began in 2019. Morris targeted individuals who had land disputes pending in the

00:33city civil court. The police said Morris pretended to be a court-appointed arbitrator

00:38and invited his clients to Gandhinagar office, which looked like a courtroom.

00:42He then issued favourable orders as if he were the head of the tribunal. But all this came to

00:48an end when some officials from the city civil court grew suspicious. This happened when one of

00:53the land disputes cases he had issued an order for in 2019 came up for hearing in the Ahmedabad

00:59city court. The case involved a piece of government land under the district collector.

01:04His client wanted to claim this land and add his name to the official records for the plot.

01:09Morris told his client that he had been appointed as the official arbitrator by the government.

01:15He then held fake proceedings in his court and issued an order for the collector to add his

01:19client's name to the land records, despite having no arbitration contract and lacking

01:24authority under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996. To make this order look genuine,

01:30Morris had another lawyer file an appeal in the city civil court,

01:33attaching the fraudulent order he had created. However, the registrar of the city civil court,

01:39Hardik Desai, raised doubts about the documents and discovered that Morris was not a legitimate

01:44arbitrator and that his tribunal orders were fake. Desai then filed a complaint with the

01:49Karanj police station and an FIR was registered on 21st October 2024. Morris was arrested for

01:55criminal breach of trust, cheating and providing false information to government servants,

02:00among other charges. The police also noted that Morris faced a cheating complaint filed at the

02:05Maninagar police station in 2015. In a similar case of cheating in September 2024, a fake

02:11branch of State Bank of India was busted in Chhattisgarh's Sakti district.

02:28Six aspirants who received offer letters and were promised a monthly salary of Rs 25,000 to

02:33Rs 30,000 were duped out of Rs 12 lakh by the accused.

02:55In Gujarat, the police said they were investigating around 12 other fake

02:59claims that Morris gave to his clients.