Pune Crime Files: After 21 years, businessman held guilty of altering Rs 5-lakh cheque to Rs 2.51 crore

On June 2024, a Pune court sentenced businessman R P Banwari, a 60-year-old resident of Karnataka, to two years of imprisonment for attempting to defraud Rs 2.51 crore by altering a Rs 5 lakh cheque. The case was registered nearly 21 years ago, in April 2005, after Cecilia Anthony Paul, a former construction firm owner and Paul's wife, lodged a complaint with the Yerwada police station.

Paul's children continued the legal proceedings after her passing, leading to the court's conviction of Banwari. Prosecutors allege that Banwari requested a hand loan from Paul, who issued a UCO Bank cheque for Rs 5 lakh in Banwari's name on March 11, 2005. Banwari allegedly wrote "Two crores fifty one lakh only" in the blank space meant for the amount and tampered with the numerical value of Rs 5,00,000, altering it to Rs 2,51,00,000.

The bank refused to honor the cheque, and Banwari was arrested in September 2005, with a bail granted three months later. A forensic handwriting expert confirmed that the figures 2 and 1 were added separately, disproving the defense's claim that the cheque was part payment for a property deal.