How a ‘flipped map’ and 12-day land deal led to a Rs 13.9 crore ‘concerted fraud’ on the Ahmedabad-Dholera Expressway
5 min readVadodaraApr 27, 2026 08:02 PM IST A flipped map, a lightning-fast non-agricultural conversion, and a land sale completed in days — what looked like routine paperwork slowly unravelled into a high-stakes land puzzle, one that the Gujarat High Court would later call a “concerted fraud” on public money. Finding that private landowners and government authorities, including officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), “colluded to siphon off the public money in a concerted manner”, the High Court cancelled the acquisition of ‘additional land’ for the Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway and directed the Chairman, NHAI, to initiate fresh, high-level inquiries into the conduct of erring officials. The Division Bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice D N Ray of the Gujarat High Court were hearing petitions filed by two private purchasers of the contentious lands, who had sought release of NHAI compensation for the ‘additional land’, subsequently acquired by the highway authority as well as a petition filed by the NHAI alleging a coordinated fraud involving landowners and officials. The case pertains to …
