Builder Niraj Ved of Shreenath Developers, who was arrested by Pant Nagar police for cheating a flat buyer, was produced before a local court on Monday and remanded in two days of police custody.Ved was arrested late on Sunday following an FIR registered against him by a flat buyer who alleged that the builder did not deliver his 1,640sqft flat in a Ghatkopar project.
The victim claimed that he had paid the builder Rs 3.31 crore.The Bombay high court had recently issued an order restraining him from selling or creating third party rights in his under-construction projects in Bhandup, Ghatkopar and Kurla.
A division bench of Justice G S Patel and Kamal Khata also directed that all aggrieved parties file criminal complaints/FIR against the accused. The court directed police to register the complaints.
A group of flat buyers had moved the court complaining that the developers had abandoned midway several projects in which they had booked flats. In some projects, the society members pooled in their own money to complete the work.
The court said in all the projects, Ved had made unlawful allotments, which had resulted in a large and apparently growing number of disgruntled occupants, purchasers and allottees. “This is a classic case of a developer playing fast and loose with development rights at the cost of those entitled to reconstructed homes or rehabilitation, third party purchasers, permanent transit camp units and worse,” the bench said.
Senior Pant Nagar police inspector Rajesh Kewale said there are in all, 10 offences of cheating, forgery and offences under the Maharashtra Flat Ownership Act (Mofa) registered against Ved in Ghatkopar and Bhandup, and with the economic offences wing. Ved is also wanted in cheque bouncing cases and illegally breaking into a flat sealed by Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority.
