Milind Gajanan Pusalkar, a 65-year-old resident of Pune and former Tech Mahindra employee, has filed a complaint with the Paud Police Station alleging illegal road blockage near his farmhouse in Mauje Dongargaon.

Pusalkar, who purchased 10 acres of land in 2005 from Sujata Farms Pvt. Ltd (SFPL) reported that its Managing Director Jayant Mhalgi and the newly formed Girivan Cooperative Maintenance Society under him, are allegedly involved in targeting and harassing members of the Girivan Welfare Society (GWS).

According to his complaint, Pusalkar alleged that the employees of SFPL blocked the entrance gate of his residence. The police visited the site and lodged a complaint against the accused and the investigation is underway. However, the other members of the GWS are also being harassed similarly, as heaps of stones were dumped at the entrances of several plots owned by GWS members, blocking access.

Speaking to The Free Press Journal, another member of GWS, Kishore Paknaikar said: "The SFPL has issues with us forming GWS as earlier we were members of SFPL. We paid them regularly, but they never gave us any account of where they were using our money and there was no transparency. Mhalgi is a middleman and has money and political power with which he threatened us. He cut our water supply and also blocked the road by putting a heap of big stones at the entrance of the internal roads inside the society. Earlier, he would send us heavy bills for water and road maintenance, and in the name of development, we paid him substantial bills. A formal complaint has also been filed against him. We want to live in peace and harmony, but we are constantly troubled by him and his employees. Strict action should be taken against him."

Devika Nadig, Secretary, GWS, said, "In the sale deed, Mhalgi slipped in a draconian contract for everyone to pay him whatever he asks for each year, and the plot owners paid him for a few years without understanding the legalities. Then we started asking him to show the income and expenditure statements because there was no development from his side. If you visit Girivan, you will see the terrible condition of all the internal roads despite us having paid him for several years, which he flatly refused to show us. All the money he collects goes into his pocket. Therefore, most of the plot owners stopped paying him. This naturally led to him creating several hindrances to our lives here, including blocking access from the main ghat section, harassment at the entry point, cutting off the water supply, cutting off power, etc."

"We tried forming a cooperative society in 2014. We had around 180 members, opened a bank account, and got permission from the Assistant Registrar at Paud village for this. Mhalgi played along making us feel he is supporting us... then on the day of the hearing, he backstabbed us and did not allow the society to be formed, getting the Assistant Registrar to freeze our bank account. We then decided to pursue the case and went to the higher court, Mantralaya as well... but everywhere, the result order used to be the same as what we got in Paud in May 2014. So we gave up. Later, by a stroke of good fortune, I met someone who helped us form Girivan Welfare Society under the Charity Commissioner's Office in October 2023," added Nadig.

Manisha Rabade, a former Journalist and a member of the society said, "He is targeting members of GWS and has also cut our water supply. We have filed a police complaint and have also filed an RTI application at the Paud Assistant Registrar's office, asking for the bylaws and other details of this new cooperative."

Speaking about the matter, PI Santosh Girigosavi, Paud Police Station, said, "This is an internal dispute between GWS and SFPL and it has been going on for the past few years. We have registered a complaint and we removed the stones from their entrance, and the police have filed the charge sheet and the case will be now fought in the court."

The Free Press Journal tried to contact Mhalgi and question him over the allegations. However, he sent a small note, which read, "We had dumped the rocks for construction purposes, and if they had told us we would have removed it but they didn't inform us and directly went to the police station and filed a complaint. There is a lot of construction work going on on the internal roads that are being repaired, so they should have communicated it to us rather than filing a complaint."