The Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has arrested city-based builder Lalit Tekchandani in connection with a cheating and forgery case, an official said on Wednesday. The case was pertaining to allegedly cheating several home buyers, the official said.
Tekchandani was brought to the EOW office in south Mumbai on Tuesday evening and placed under arrest after questioning, he said.The EOW has been conducting a probe into a case of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust against Tekchandani and others, he said.Last week, the EOW conducted searches at four premises of Tekchandani, including his office and residence.
Earlier this month, a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against Tekchandani, his wife, the directors of his company Supreme Constructions and a few others at the Chembur police station here.
The complainant in the case said he had invested Rs 36 lakh in Tekchandani’s construction project at Taloja in neighbouring Navi Mumbai.
The company assured him that the project would be ready in 2017. However, its construction stopped suddenly in 2016. Hundreds of flat buyers invested in Tekchandani’s project, but they neither got the flats nor received their money back, the complaint alleged.
Based on the complaint, Tekchandani and others were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and other provisions, police earlier said.
One more FIR was registered at the Taloja police station in Navi Mumbai against Tekchandani and others earlier this month.
As per the complaint, 160 home buyers were duped of Rs 44 crore by the accused in his company’s housing project at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai, police had said.