Three times Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shyama Charan Shukla may have passed away more than six years back, but fraudsters in Uttar Pradesh impersonated the Congress leader and sold his property in Lucknow.

On the basis of fake documents, a man sold 21 'bigha' land of the former CM Shukla in Meenapur village in Mohanlalganj, police said.

While a high-level probe has been ordered by the state government into the matter, an FIR has also been lodged at Mohanlalganj Police Station.

The land, according to the records of the registry office was on April 2 sold by Shyama Charan, who appeared in person and registered the land in the name of one Rakesh Bhardwaj.

Shukla's impostor presented a photocopy of the voter identity card as his identity proof for getting the registry done.

At the time of registration, it has been mentioned that two cheques of Rs 10 lakh each were given, but their number, bank's name and account number were not mentioned.

After the matter came to the fore, a probe was ordered by the Chief Minister's office on May 30.

"When the inquiry was conducted, it was detected that the photo on the voter identity card seemed to be that of a man in the age group of 40-45 years and not that of Shukla, who passed away in 2007," SP (rural) Saumitra Yadav said.

An FIR has been registered in this matter at Mohanlalganj Police Station and the police is trying to locate the buyer Rakesh Bharadwaj, who claimed to be from Ballia, and two witnesses Anup Gupta and Rajesh Tiwari.

"Once the buyer and witnesses are located then it will be known that who sold the land to them," the SP said.

Asked about the matter, SP MLA Abhay Singh said that when he came to know about the matter by one of Shukla's relative, he was shocked.

"Rising above party lines, I informed authorities about the matter as such an incident brings bad name to the party," he said.