‘Con man Johnson misled HC & govt in Bhojpur church land deal case’

PATNA: The Indian Church on Wednesday claimed that Johnson T John, whose power of attorney was used to sell the plot of Holy Saviour Church at Ara in Bhojpur district to 16 different persons, was a con man involved in fraudulently transferring several other church properties across the country.
Indian Church’s Metropolitan of India and Bishop of Lucknow John Augustine said even the Patna high court and the state government had been misled for several years by John and Alfred Andrews, who claimed himself to be the Bishop of Methodist Church of India and authority of the church land in Bhojpur.Augustine also filed an interlocutory petition before the Patna high court in the writ filed by Andrews and John for quashing the FIR lodged against them in the forgery case. Augustine said he would try to meet CM Nitish Kumar and apprise him of the facts.
“John was once the secretary of Indian church. He was terminated on April 30, 2007 for disobedience and misconduct,” said Augustine, adding that the Bhojpur church and its land is the property of Indian Church under the Indian Church Act, 1927 and not of Methodist Church of India.
“John has fraudulently sold other church properties in Agra, Dehradun, Lucknow and Delhi in the past and is evading arrest by the Economic Offences Unit of Delhi police,” Augustine said and added that he had pleaded before the high court to cancel all 16 sale deeds.
Two women, Namrata Singh and Manju Singh, had sold the 158.58 decimal of church land at Ara to 16 private persons between October 7, 2016 and January 17 this year for Rs16.37 crore through power of attorney allegedly given by John, who projected himself as the Metropolitan Vishesh of India and chairman of Indian Church.
On July 15 this year, an FIR was lodged against John, district registrar Pramod Kumar Singh and 20 others by the Bhojpur district administration on Patna zonal IG Nayyar Hasnain Khan’s directive. Khan had raised suspicion after conducting a preliminary enquiry into the land deal.
When contacted, the IG said investigations were on in case. “The state government has the ownership of the plot where the Bhojpur Mounted Military Police (MMP) headquarters is located,” he said.