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Hawa Mahal?
Updated On: 23 September, 2009 08:31 AM IST | | Amit Kumar and Prawesh Lama
A Delhi magistrate and his brother, among thousands, paid a lakh each to book flats under what they thought was India's largest housing project. Six years later, the company claims it never offered homes
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A Delhi magistrate and his brother, among thousands, paid a lakh each to book flats under what they thought was India's largest housing project. Six years later, the company claims it never offered homes
SPREAD across 217 towns and cities and involving thousands of middle-class investors, it started out in 2003 as arguably India's biggest housing dream.
Six years later, many of these investors say the dream has left them sleepless; that not a single brick has been laid in Gurgaon, Mumbai or any of the promised locations under the Sahara Swarn Yojna and Sahara Rajat Yojna.
The Sahara group rubbishes their grouse, saying it had never promised anybody homes under the scheme (read story on Sahara's clarification). It also says aggrieved parties were offered their money back.
However, forms that subscribers were made to fill up under the scheme carried location options of the property, among other things.
One of those who were offered their money back was Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at the Patiala House Court Ajay Pandey and his brother Neeraj Pandey, who had subscribed under the Sahara Swarn Yojna.
They refused, admittedly for "greater public good", and are now among the most dogged campaigners against what Neeraj calls Sahara's "duping of thousands of investors across the country".
Ajay Pandey's complaints of forgery, cheating, "dishonestly inducing delivery of property" and criminal conspiracy against Sahara India Commercial Corporation Limited (SICCL) and the group's owner Subroto Roy was taken up in an FIR by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in mid-August. Neeraj's case is on at Delhi's Karkardooma district court.
Raja Harpal Singh, a journalist working for an Urdu daily, registered a case against SICCL at the Kashmere Gate police station on October 24 for criminal breach of trust, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property.
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In the FIR, he accused the company of taking money from him under the two schemes without having even purchased any land for the projects. He also accused the company of making false representations and withholding his money.
In September 2007, a consumer dispute redressal forum in Chandigarh reportedly asked SICCL to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to one RK Sharma, a subscriber of the Sahara Swarn Yojna, for failing to allot him a house though he had made the necessary payments even after three years of registration.
Also, hearing a case filed by Darshan Singh at Delhi's Patel Nagar police station, a trial court allowed investigators to conduct searches at SICCL's command office in Lucknow and three of its buildings in Noida last year.
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The investigating officer told the court during a recent hearing that besides Singh, at least 17 others have joined as complainants, claiming that the company cheated them on the pretext of providing houses in Gurgaon at cheap rates.
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Foxed? Neeraj Pandey, on of the subscribers of the Sahara Swarn Yojna, is leading a legal campaign against the company. Read Next Story Trending StoriesLatest Photos |
