On Friday afternoon, the two were apprehended near the Bombay High Court. Ahuja Constructions is well-known in Central Mumbai and the western suburbs for its distinctive luxury constructions.

Last March, the 14th Metropolitan Magistrate Court convicted and sentenced them to six months in uncomplicated imprisonment.

They were also ordered to pay Rs 14.7 lakh in compensation to the petitioner within 30 days, or face another three months of simple imprisonment. The complainant is a Breach Candy resident who filed a lawsuit against Ahuja Properties and Developers and its two directors, Jagdish and Gautam Ahuja, under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act.

In October 2015, the accused sought the complainant for a “friendly loan” of Rs 10 lakh on the condition that it be repaid within 12 months with a 20.4 percent interest rate. He agreed to make the loan because the complainant was a family friend.

The complainant further said that the accused paid two quarterly interest payments on time. However, the cheque for the third quarterly payment of interest was returned unpaid. This led the complainant to lodge a complaint. According to the conviction ruling, he indicated that two cheques for the fourth quarterly interest were likewise returned due to “insufficient balance.”

According to property market sources, many complaints have been launched against the construction firm and its directors in various courts for alleged cheque bouncing.

According to city police, the duo was also arrested under the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act.  A couple from Pune accused them of scamming them of Rs 2 crore.

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The magistrate had properly noted, according to the session’s court, that there was a prima facie case to establish carelessness on the part of the constructor, which may jeopardize human life and personal safety. “It is apparent from the images that nets are used to protect people and property from harm. The plaster is flaking off owing to debonding in the block, which is a construction-related issue, not wear and tear, according to the report.

Devdarshan CHS filed a complaint with the magistrate court in 2018 saying that a section of the seven-year-old structure was on the verge of collapse. It highlighted two incidents in 2017 in which pieces of plaster from two balconies fell. It said that two automobiles were destroyed and that the damages totalled Rs 2.15 lakh. The group went on to say that audit reports performed by a reputable business and an expert revealed massive fractures, leakage, and seepage that could be seen with the naked eye.

The magistrate’s court-filed proceedings against City Estate Developers Ltd, its directors, and four individuals last year. The complaint was made by the chairman of the CHS, who stated that the builder had constructed the residential-cum commercial building, which consisted of 108 flats, and that the purchasers had been dwelling in the property since 2011.

According to the organization, the builder was obligated to create and register a society but had failed to do so. It was said that the construction was subpar because the materials utilized were of poor quality. In addition, a complaint has been filed with the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

The complaint was made under provisions of the Indian Penal Code dealing with threatening the life or personal safety of others, as well as common purpose. The maximum punishment under the offence is three months in jail or a fine of up to Rs 250, or both.

The builder and officials, on the other hand, rejected the claims, stating that the building had been maintained by the inhabitants and their committee since 2014, and so they were responsible for upkeep. They said the lawsuit was filed to harass and extort money from them.

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Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) CMD Kapil Wadhawan, 46 years old, has been arrested and brought before the specified PMLA court by the Enforce Directorate (ED), under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and held under the custody of the ED until 29 January 2020. The court accepted the Agency’s claim that Wadhawan’s remand was essential since he knew the transactions and payments made to buy the three properties in Worli in central Mumbai, allegedly owned by the gangster Iqbal Mirchi.

“Chairman and managing director of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) Kapil Wadhawan visited London in 2010 with a local real estate broker to meet Iqbal Mirchi.” As part of the illicit deal between Mirchi and Wadhawans, he was instrumental in collecting huge sum of money. Kapil Wadhawan played a very important part in the catastrophic money laundering transactions.

“He diverted major funds to shell companies from DHFL, and it was eventually transferred to Wadhawan’s operated Sunblink Real Estate Pvt Ltd,” the ED mentioned in its remand note. The case involves the assets of Mirchi Mumbai that have been identified as the ED’s crime proceeds and three of such properties have been sold to the Wadhawan brothers, Kapil and Dheeraj company named Sunblink.

The ED has filed a criminal lawsuit against Mirchi alias Iqbal Memon, his family and others to examine money laundering charges, for alleged illicit sale and purchase of expensive real estate assets transactions in Mumbai. Mirchi, who died in London in 2013, was supposed to be the right-hand man in the drug trafficking and extortion crimes of the global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.

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In view of the inability of the police to provide non-bailable warrants to the three partners of Kondhwa-based real estate company (Pune) KDS Infra Buildcons for non-compliance of its order, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) took a strong note of it.

In the four years, total, 132 home buyers — mainly retired Ammunition Factory workers, Khadki, armed forces and central government establishments — have failed to get their money back that ranges from Rs 75,000 to Rs 1.50 lakh, which was charged to book apartments in KDS Dham and KDS Angan at Charholi Budruk near Vishrantwadi between 2009 and 2010. The project never began and the company sold the land to a third party.

In response to the complaint made in 2012 by consumer body Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat, NCDRC on 17 February 2016 asked for a refund of Rs 1.34 crore with 18% annual interest and Rs 4 lakh each as damages to 132 homebuyers from the real estate firm and its associates – Bhupendrasingh Dhillon, Maruti Budhaji Kadale and Abhijit Maruti Kadale.

The ‘Grahak panchayat’ preferred a plea to carry out the order in June 2016. Since then, the commission has directed NBWs several times against the KDS partners. But the proceedings were evaded by them. The complainant- Lawyer Vijay Kharmale said: “They paid Rs 10 lakh of the order amount, which goes to almost Rs 4 crore.”

In the order issued on 16 January, the NCDRC bench of presiding member, Anup K Thakur, and the member, S M Kantikar, stated: “After a clear statement of the decree dated 10 April 2019, the civil police authorities’ cooperation in the issuance of NBWs on the debtors (partners) was insufficient.”

The bench said that the DCP (involved) was going to appear before it directly and the notice of the appearance was to be sent by the policeman if the Kondhwa police were unable to serve the warrants. “However, on behalf of officials mentioned in that order there is no appearance or any submission,” the bench said.

The commission has “again given the police a chance to make fresh attempts in serving NBWs through the DCP and, in case of incapacity, to send a clear report to the next hearing on 16 April.” If nothing happens on April 16, we shall move a plea of stigma in the Supreme Court,” Kharmale said.

“NBWs could not be enforced, as existing addresses for these three partners were not identified. We issued new instructions to the Kondhwa police to find the addresses and carry out the warrants,” said, DCP (Zone V) Suhas Bawache.

Source: Magicbricks

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Homebuyers opposed the central government’s ordinance to amend the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC) 2016 and demanded a stay of the operation of Section 3 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) 2019, which aims to modify Section 7 of the IBC.

“The writ petition is filed by 11 petitioners from 11 different projects, including Pioneer Urban Land & Infrastructure, Emaar MGF Land, BPTP, Supertech, Ansals. The petitioners say they are being exacerbated by the developers’ inactions and the vagueness in promulgating the Ordinance titled Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2019,” said Advocate Aditya Parolia of PSP Legal representing the home buyers.

The judgment is in complete contradiction to the fundamental rights granted under Article 14 and the 21 of the Constitution of India to house buyers (Financial Creditors), the plea said.

Piyush Singh, advocate, PSP Legal, who is the representative of the home buyers, said that “the central government has enforced the decision with absolute prejudice by imposing a pre-condition/ threshold in the form of minimum number of delegated persons for a particular project required to apply to trigger the code under Section 7 of the IBC, which cannot be applicable to other financial creditors under the IBC.”

“The ordinance is in contrast to the well-established principle set out in the Pioneer Urban Land and Infrastructure & Anr. v Union of India and has rendered the judgment ineffective,” said Singh.

According to the home buyers’ plea, no person who collects so many financial creditors from the same project will meet the minimum threshold by the span of 30 days as defined in section 3 of the Ordinance.

“The information of the allottees has never been published on a public domain or on any website, as the same is not allowed under the legislation to publish the data of the allottees in such public domain, because the same will breach their Right to Privacy as given in Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” Parolia explained.

Section 3 of the ordinance on the face is also in violation of Article 14 since the threshold of at least 10% or 100 of the total allottees in a given project for filing an application under Section 7 of the IBC applies only to real estate allottees or other class of creditors and not to any other financial creditors, the home buyers claimed in their petition.

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Residents of Azad Nagar chawls in Wadala, in violation of the Bombay High Court ruling in March 2019, wrote to Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi to terminate the development agreement with East & West Developers, a part of RNA Group, for failing to pay transit rent to 324 residents.

On 1 September at the project location near Wadala bus depot, more than 200 people from chawls took part in a protest condemning the developer of not commencing the construction nor paying rent to them. However, the project started to redevelop in 2003.

The Shree Azad Nagar Co-operative Housing Society held a special general meeting on 15 September after the protests and decided that by 5 October the developer would be given the final opportunity to pay for the arrears. The resolution said that the society would terminate its development agreement if the company failed to pay, and would ask the BMC to issue a public notice.

The Azad Nagar chawls had 32 ground floor chawls spread across 8.5 acres of land near Wadala bus depot. This plot of land was resettled for people displaced by the massive explosion on the dock in 1944. The area underwent redevelopment in 2003 and the society and developer signed an agreement.

The Society, East & West Developers and the BMC signed a tripartite agreement under Development Control Regulation 33(7) in June 2006 to reconstruct the cessed structures. In 2015, all the chawls were demolished and the tenants had given the developer the land but never begun to be constructed. In 2017, the builder stopped paying the rent to the majority of the tenants of more than Rs 40,000 per month.

Justice Gautam Patel heard a complaint of contempt on 20 March 2019 and strongly opposed the builder. In para 19 of the 17-page order, he said: “If East & West fails in two circumstances to pay as set forth herein, all agreements with the builder, regardless of anything in any previous order or consent terms, shall be terminated automatically. In this instance, all rights and entitlements of East & West Developers for this venture will be forfeited and lost.” Further, it also directed the BMC commissioner to pass the appropriate directions “without issuing any notice hearing or recording reasons”.

The residents have however said that the developer has not paid the rent and committed not only two but eight defaults until October 2019.

A spokesperson for East & West Developers said: “We are not aware of the tenants going to MCGM despite the fact that the matter was sub-judice and rentals were paid in compliance with the agreements. We are not aware of any deadlines for October and what it was set.”

Source: Economic Times

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In an important decision which would support a large number of shops in local shopping centres (LSC) in areas such as Greater Kailash, Defense Colony, South Extension, etc, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), at its meeting on Thursday, granted an exemption from conversion charges to shops that initially auctioned as purely commercial property.

“DDA wanted an amendment earlier, which imposed conversion fees for shops that use upper floors for commercial use. When the plan was put into the public domain, several people objected to it, claiming that the plots on which these shops were constructed were already commercial and that the upper floors were only temporarily used for residential purposes,” a senior DDA official said.

“There are, however, a different type of shops, such as the ones in Sarojini Nagar and the Khan Market, where residential upper floors had been first permitted. Such shops will need to pay charges for conversion,” he said.

“The LSC’s Defense Colony and South Extension shops were sold at premium rates as commercial plots and the minimal residential development was allowed. Those who paid high commercial rates should not be paying the conversion fee,” said the president of Defense Colony market association Rajinder Malik.

The GK-I M-Block market trading association leader Rajender Sharda stated that those who paid conversion fees must be refunded or the amount should be adjusted in a floor area ratio.

The exemption from certain statutory clearances for household enterprises is another important decision taken during the meeting chaired by Delhi LG Anil Baijal.

Household industrial units with a maximum number of nine employees and 11 KW of power, in residential areas, with new industries of a similar type would not need to have mandatory statutory clearances, with no pollution industrial units being allowed as a household sector, from the Departments of Labor and Industries, and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).

Institutional category plots will now be auctioned on freehold basis instead of as rented land, for schools, hospitals and socio-cultural organisations. “We expect more builders now with freehold plots,” said the official.

It can now be transformed into a large plot of up to 200 square meters from a smaller residential plot.

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The Gujarat Real Estate Appellate Tribunal stated in a significant order that the group must, first be registered association if a group of residents wants to complain against a developer with the Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA).

The residents or allottees of houses can lodge complaints either individually or by means of a lawyer, without registering an association. For the residents of the newly constructed housing scheme, the Court’s judgment has been an admonition that they should insist that the builder to establish and register the association at the earliest opportunity so that they can formally complain to RERA about the project.

In this scenario, some 20 residential scheme allottees in Vadodara had formed an association — Crystal Yaghnapurush Residential and Owners’ Association. It wasn’t a registered association. They filed a complaint against the scheme builder Manish Patel about a project that had not been accomplished and that the clubhouse and various facilities have not been completed.

On 5 November, RERA issued an interim order asking the developer to increase the workforce on the site and complete the project in two months. RERA notified the builder to complete the project as early as possible or to pay compensation to the residents.

The builder opposed this order and his attorney, Vishal Dave, claimed that this was not a registered association.

The promoter should allow the formation of an association or a cooperative society of the allottees or of a federation of the same under Section 11(4)(e) of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016. RERA cannot accept a group complaint without a registered association.

The court acknowledged the claim and confirmed that the case could not be continued. The tribunal also stated that due to technical reasons the complaint must not be allowed to fail, that allowed the group time to modify the complaint till 31 December by allowing each member to make a complaint in his or her individual capacity.

Source: Times of India

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In Malad West at Orlem, owners of almost 10 bungalows, claiming they live there for decades, were allegedly told a member of a neighbouring colony of sweepers to incorporate them without their knowledge in a Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme.

The 10 bungalows in D’Monte Lane received notifications of demolition after their owners were considered as Sairaj Guriyapada SRA CHS Ltd’s members, which permitted the implementation of an SRA scheme by Transcon-Sheth Creators (Pvt) Ltd.

On 13 June, the notices of demolition were delivered in accordance with Section 33/38 of the SRA Act and the structures were called for within 48 hours. On August 9 the owners of the bungalows obtained a stay from the apex grievance redressal committee of the SRA.

Despite the stay, access to one of the bungalows was reportedly blocked on 5 October and her power supply and water supplies were also cut. Once against, the residents approached the apex committee of the SRA and managed to get a stop-work order for the SRA sales component. Some also filed a case before the court.

Advocate David Joseph, Remedios’ family solicitor, said, “We urged the apex body to say that the developer was digging the structure’s foundation to collapse. The apex body came down heavily on the builder and asked the builder’s representative if they were digging under the bungalows that he denied.”

However, two engineering officers were appointed by the apex committee, who presented a report confirming the excavation work and disconnecting electricity and water supply. Consequently, the apex committee issued a notice of stop-work in the area surrounding the bungalows on October 19. Joseph alleged that a bogus society had been formed by the developer, the Sairaj Guriyapada SRA CHS Limited, consisting of 50 sweeper community members who had invaded some other land.

He added, “The developer then started to include private-owned chawls in this society. Therefore, the number of people grew from 50 to 1,500. The builder used this society to harass the owners of bungalows. But, they were unable to demonstrate the ownership certificate issued to my client to the apex committee. In return for 4,000-sqft bungalows, the builder would like to offer 269-sqft structures in 2024. The SRA scheme has already completed the selling of flats in the proposed 60-story buildings.

Bruce Remedios, Son of Connie, said: “We were shocked to learn that our bungalow was designated as a slum in spite of being residents of the third generation. Our plot was inspected and we were not informed. What gives the SRA the power to enter our plot at the request of a builder? For more than 50 years, we have been living here. Since my grandmother’s days, it has been our ancestral home.

Anita Masurkar, living in another bungalow in the Baretto Compound, said: “We got a 1,500 sqft bungalow with a 5,000-sqft garden and my aunt has a 1,500 sqft home, but under SRA we were clubbed. It was the brazen lie that we are the encroachers. My grandfather bought this land. We were cultivators then. Only now is the builder coming to the frame. Our 7.5 acres plot is next to the sweepers’ area, but we’ve nothing to do with it. How can they label us as slum-dwellers and sweepers?

Joseph said that the Apex Committee will now look at how this land is declared a slum, for the time being, the demolition has been halted. He added, “A slum is justified as hutment colony without water supply, electricity, drainage and streetlights. But, the bungalow owners have all these facilities and pay the necessary taxes. Hutment dwellers in the SRA scheme are far away from the property and how could an individual bungalow with a compound wall be declared a slum?” On 24 October he was issued a notice from the SRA’s apex body chairman, asking him to be available on 30 October in at Mantralaya for a hearing on the stop-work notice.

The developer did, however, deny the allegations and claim to own the property. Amit Jalan, nominee Director of Transcon-Sheth Creators (Pvt) Ltd, said, “This plot has been declared an SRA slum more than 10 years ago, and it’s a false statement by the residents that we are threatening them. Almost 225 who complained but all have vacated except one, and those who claim to have bungalows are actually encroachers. They’re demanding for Rs 8- 10 crore for a slum structure of 180 sqft. The matter is before the court and we are legally fighting it. We don’t force them or tell them to get out of their homes. No notices of eviction were released.

“The issue of slum declaration doesn’t fall within my jurisdiction. The issue is with the apex grievance redressal committee, and a slum Court appeal is pending. I cannot disclose more info or comment on a court issue,” said Executive Engineer, SRA, Pradeep Pawar.

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