60 families cheated of ₹36 crore, case filed
MUMBAI: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has registered a case against three partners of a construction firm for allegedly duping 60 families in Dahisar to the tune of ₹36 crore in the name of redeveloping their property. Sandeep Seth, Dharmesh Tanna and Amit Patil of the KT Group have been booked under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act (Mofa), but no arrest has been made in the case so far.
According to EOW sources, 73-year-old complainant Mahadev Panchal, a Dahisar resident, stated that the Borivli based developers had taken up the redevelopment of the Dahisar Ujjwal Co-operative Housing Society, in Kandarpada, in 2007.
“Sixty members of the housing society were promised homes in the redeveloped ground-plus-13storey tower, while another building would be constructed on the same plot of which the apartments would be saleable. But the construction work of the project was stopped in October 2015,” Panchal said. The redeveloped building was supposed to be ready in three years, but is still under construction.
When the residents raised the issue, the developers agreed to keep four to six flats in their Mehek Plaza building in Borivli (West) together worth ₹12 crore, mortgaged with them for security. However, the three accused later sold those flats along with 39 flats from the Dhahisar saleable area worth ₹24 crore, thus cheating the original tenants of a total of ₹36 crore, Panchal alleged in the first information report (FIR).
Sunil Khanolkar, one of the members of the society, said, “The 60 affected families are mostly of retired people, who get a monthly pension of around ₹10,000 to ₹15,000. One can imagine how we are managing.”
The developers stopped paying them rent from July 1, 2016. The housing unit of EOW has booked the three builders and is in the process of collecting evidence. HT attempted to call and message the developers for their comment but they were unreachable.