THREE TRUSTEES BOOKED FOR ‘DUPING’ 14 CHAWL TENANTS

MUMBAI: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has registered an FIR against three trustees of Shankheshwar Parshwanath Jain Derasar Pedhi in Borivli (East), an architect, and two others of a realty firm for allegedly duping 14 tenants of a 60-year-old chawl in Daulat Nagar of ₹20 crore. According to the EOW, the accused had promised to redevelop the chawl, but have kept the tenants waiting since 2007.

The complainant is 53-year-old businessman Deepak Modi, whose family has been living in Vardhaman Tap Jain Nivas chawl, on Jain Mandir road, for 52 years. Modi lodged a complain on behalf of 14 tenants, including him, on November 14, against the trustees Kamalnayan Mehta, Ramesh Shah and Bhikabhai Doshi; the architect Pramod Shah; and developer and partners of Yash Realtors, Harshita Shah and Paresh Shah. They have been charged with cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and cheating. The chawl is owned by the trust.

However, Mehta said all the allegations against him and the others are false. “We provided all the information during the preliminary probe. We have no idea about any FIR.”

In his statement, Modi said, “The accused proved the chawl’s structure is in a dangerous state in 2007 and forced us to vacate it. No agreement was made on the rent payment.” The tenants were promised 225-sq ft houses each and the building in 18 months, in writing by the builder. Modi alleged that the trustees showed the value of the property was just ₹18.90lakh, while it was around ₹25-30 crore. The trustees deposited only ₹50 lakh as the corpus.

Of the 45 tenants, from 2013 to 2016, many vacated their flats. However, they stopped getting rent after six months. Modi and 13 others did not vacate the place till 2016 when they were served the final eviction notice. They also have not received the rent. An EOW officer said, “During preliminary inquiry, we found substance in the tenants’ complaint.”