Directors of Noida realty firm arrested for funds diversion
SCAM Police say the three arrested officials of Hacienda Projects Pvt Ltd diverted ₹191 crore to other projects
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police’s economic offences wing (EOW) has arrested three directors of a real estate firm for allegedly diverting ₹191 crore invested by homebuyers into its other projects and not delivering the flats on time.
Police said the three directors of Hacienda Projects Pvt Ltd— Surpreet Singh Suri, Vidur Bhardwaj and Nirmal Singh — have been booked for cheating, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust.
Additional commissioner of police (economic offences wing) Suvashish Choudhary said the FIR was registered for not delivering flats in a housing project, Lotus 300, in Noida’s Sector 107. Police said the project has six towers and all of them are yet to be completed.
In a statement, the Delhi Police said the project was to be developed by Hacienda Projects Pvt Ltd. The project, started in 2012, was to be delivered within 39 months from the date of issuance of allotment letters. The company had said the project will have 300 apartments, but at a later date, got the building/ plan changed from the Noida authority with mala fide intentions, police said.
Police said in 2014, a dispute arose between farmers, whose land was acquired for the housing project, and the Noida authority.
This was settled in 2016 and the project was revived. However, the builders then allegedly tricked each homebuyer into investing around ₹5 lakh more, police said, but continued to delay the delivery time.
“The number of apartments was increased from 300 to 336 in the project, which is a violation of the terms of the Uttar Pradesh Apartment (Promotion of Construction, Ownership and Maintenance) Act, 2010,” the police statement said.
Police said there are more than 50 complainants in the FIR and the company had collected nearly ₹100 crore from them.
Police also said there are total of 328 investors in the project and the company has collected nearly ₹636 crore, of which ₹191 crore has been diverted by the builder to its subsidiary companies.
The additional commissioner said police are also looking into four or five other cases registered against the three directors. Despite repeated attempts, company officials could not be contacted at the addresses and phone numbers provided by the police.