K K Vyas, Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW), said Verma reportedly provided his Shalimar Bagh office — from where he runs Lucky Properties — to three main accused in the scam, Deepak Kumar, Vijay Pal and Surender Singh, alias Suresh, for filling up forms. Verma helped Vijay Pal in selling one of the flats allotted in the name of a dummy/proxy applicant at a premium of Rs 4 lakh, the DCP said.

This flat, allotted in the name of “Moti Lal”, was reportedly sold to one Qasim Ahmad, officials said.

The police had called Verma for questioning on Wednesday after his name came up during the interrogation of the arrested accused. He was later arrested and was on Thursday produced in the Rohini courts, and has been remanded to two days police custody.

Verma, a resident of Paschim Vihar, also had a share in all the flats.

This is the eighth arrest in the case where a group of property dealers and a former DDA official conspired to corner DDA flats reserved for the SC/ST category by fraudulently applying in the name of people belonging to these communities.

The DDA, on December 6, 2008, conducted a draw of lots for over 5,000 flats, for which over 5.67 lakh people had filed applications. The police registered a total of three FIRs after allegations of rigging in the draw were made.

The first case was registered on January 9, on a complaint filed by a Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan) resident accusing Laxmi Narayan Meena of obtaining his signatures on two forms after misleading him. Two more cases were registered on January 17 and 19, invoking provisions of cheating, forgery, using forged documents as genuine and other sections of the IPC.

Deepak Kumar, who allegedly blew the lid off the scam after he fell out with some real-estate agents, M L Gautam, an ex-DDA employee, Raju Ram, Laxmi Narayan Meena, Vijay Pal and Suresh Kumar Meena have been arrested by the police.

Two others, Satbir Singh and Dinesh Dral, were arrested in connection with providing fake documents.

Jeet Ram, the seventh person to be arrest in this case, was held on April 28 for allegedly providing Rs 15 lakh to M L Gautam.

Gautam also issued post-dated cheques in favour of Jeet Ram as security.