Fresh FIR against Wadhawans for duping 400 homebuyers of ₹200cr
The economic offences wing (EOW) of Mumbai Police registered a fresh first information report (FIR) against Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) company and its promoters, Rakesh Kumar and his son Sarang Wadhawan, for allegedly duping more than 400 home buyers of ₹200 crore.
The Wadhawans are currently in jail for their alleged involvement in the ₹6,670 crore Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank scam.
According to EOW, HDIL allegedly took money from buyers for flats in Bhandup’s Majestic Towers, but did not give the possession of the flats to the buyers. The housing fraud unit of the EOW is now probing the case.
The FIR was registered based on a complaint filed by Chandrakishore Kolindiwala, 69, president of Majestic Towers Flat Owners’ Association. In his complaint, Kolindiwala said he came across the project in 2010 in a newspaper advertisement. He visited the site of the project and the builder’s office. After going through the catalogue and the construction plan, he booked a 3
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bedroom-house-kitchen (BHK) flat on the 19th floor of the tower for ₹86.36 lakh. Kolindiwala signed the registered sale deed for the flat with HDIL on October 17, 2013 and paid an advance of ₹81 lakh. As per the agreement, HDIL promised to handover the possession of the ready flat the same year. However, the construction work for the project did not get completed that year. When Kolindiwala visited the site and made inquiries about the project, HDIL executives told him that the delay was owing to shortage of labourers and delay in getting the requisite permissions from authorities, his complaint to the police stated.
Speaking to HT, Kolindiwala said, “I sold my century-year-old ancestral land to buy this flat for my family, but lost everything due to the builder. Till date, only 65% construction work for the building has been completed.”
Kolindiwala later discovered that there are other home buyers who were not given their houses despite paying the money. In 2018, the flat buyers moved the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, against HDIL. On December 27, 2018, Rera ordered HDIL to resume the construction work for the project by April 2019 and complete it by December 30, 2020. It further stated that if the developer fails to deliver the flats on the given time, their registration would be cancelled and the developer will have to pay compensation to the home buyers with interest.
Meanwhile, the home buyers formed the Majestic Towers Flat Owners’ Association in May last year and approached Rera again, as HDIL failed to resume work by April 2019. In September 2019, Rera disposed the matter on the ground that HDIL has moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) against the complaint and the insolvency resolutions process was underway. The association then filed a criminal complaint against HDIL.