The Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing arrested managing directors of real estate company Unitech — Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra — on Friday night from their office in Gurugram over alleged cheating and breach of trust. The duo was produced in a Patiala House court on Saturday and were sent to two-day police custody.
Over ₹200 crore
Police sources told The Hindu that the two accused have 91 complaints against them for allegedly duping 557 people of over ₹200 crore by accepting their money on the pretext of allotting them houses in Gugugram, Greater Noida and Noida, and then not delivering on the agreement.
On Friday, the police arrested the Chandras stating they wanted to trace the money trail and procure documentary evidence on the alleged siphoning of the funds, Rinku Garg, counsel for the accused, told The Hindu .
No permission
The action has been taken in a case that was registered in 2015 on court directions. The police said the accused had not obtained prior permission from the competent authorities and the building plans were also not sanctioned. The entire amount which was to be kept in escrow accounts, has been siphoned off, except ₹10 lakh, the police submitted in the court. The accused had failed to provide the details of actual expenditures and the building project papers.
The defence counsel, however, said these grounds are vague in nature because the FIR was registered in 2015. “About the money trail, whatever they had to investigate, they could do it through bank accounts because every penny given by home buyers was made through cheque so they could find out from the bank accounts,” said Mr. Garg.
Others involved
Observing that at this stage, it would not go into the minute details of the case, the court said the police custody of the accused persons was extremely necessary to recover relevant documents and information either from them or at their instance and that the police needed to ascertain the involvement of others, if any.
This is not the only case registered against the accused persons. In 2014 also, the EOW had registered a cheating case in connection with the Gurgaon South Park.
In that case, the Punjab National Bank Housing Finance Ltd. had also been made an accused. As per the agreement, the bank had to pay the amount to the builder and the complainants had to pay instalments to the bank. The bank, which should have released funds to the builder in instalments, allegedly made the entire payment without keeping a check on the progress of construction works.
“On behalf of the complainants, we have approached various forums for redress of their grievances. The case is currently pending in the court. The Supreme Court had ordered the accused to pay ₹2 crore for refund by April 3. They deposited ₹1 crore and were continuously seeking extension of time. Now that they have been arrested, they might not appear in the Supreme Court on the next date of hearing, April 7. Now, there is a question mark on how further refunds will be made,” said lawyer Alabhya Bajpai.
Earlier bail plea
A different court had last year remanded to judicial custody and later granted bail to the two accused, Unitech's chaiman Ramesh Chandra and company's director Minoti Bahri in another case of not refunding booking amounts to two customers.
The complainants had booked properties in Unitech’s Habitat Apartments project in Greater Noida. Additional Judge Vimla Yadav had granted them bail after they gave an undertaking that they would clear all pending dues to the two complainants.
