E-Paper
EMAAR-MGF dispute: UAE-based realty company booked by Gurugram police
“The realty company allegedly came up with the valuation of lands at low prices when the adjacent lands were being sold at much higher prices, exploited the warranty indemnity and litigation indemnity agreements and committed cognisable offences for getting wrongful gain.” -FIR
United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based multinational real estate development company, EMAAR Properties PJSC, its Indian subsidiary, EMAAR India Ltd, and 12 individuals working for the two have been booked by the Gurugram police for allegedly usurping assets of its former business partner MGF and creating third party interest by preparing fabricated valuation reports with respect to demerged assets and causing wrongful loss to the complainant and corresponding wrongful gain to themselves.
They have been booked for cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy, on the complaint of its former India partner, MGF Development Ltd.
The UAE-based realtor, as per the first information report (FIR), allegedly came up with the valuation of lands at low prices when the adjacent lands were being sold in the market at much higher prices, exploited the warranty indemnity agreement (WIA) and litigation indemnity agreement (LIA) and committed serious cognisable offences for getting wrongful gain for themselves and wrongful loss to the complainant.
Land undervalued at Emaar’s behest
As per the FIR, the land at Sector 63 (Kadarpur), Sector 63 (Maidawas) and Sector 63 (Ullawas), Sector 74A (Narsinghpur), Sector 74A (Begumpur, Khatola), Sector 76 (KherkiDaula), Sector 81 (Nakhdola Nawada Fatehpur), Sector 85 and Sector 90, Gurugram, were grossly undervalued by Jones Lang Laselle (JLL), an independent valuer, at the behest of Emaar and its officers by creating forged and false valuation reports to cause wrongful loss to the complainant and wrongful gain to themselves.
The FIR was registered by the police on November 20 on the directions of Gurugram chief judicial magistrate, Ramesh Chander.
The November 20 FIR said that detailed investigation was required into the aspect of how the accused came up with the valuation of the lands at low prices when the adjacent lands were being sold in the market at much higher prices. “The conspiracy has been hatched in secret, however, the investigation authorities need to unearth the same through custodial interrogation, examination of witnesses and seizure of documents. The accused have generated proceeds of crime from their illegal acts which needs to be seized immediately and criminal conspiracy unearthed,’’ the FIR said.
The FIR said that the accused were in the process of committing further offences against the complainant including destroying the evidence that proves the commission of the offences committed by them, influencing the witnesses who have knowledge about various facets of their illegal acts.
“The seizure of the material in possession of the accused, such as their computer servers located in India and Dubai, their mobile phones, computers, electronic devices – all that have been used in the commission of the offences, documents in their possession regarding the properties in question, bank accounts etc. are necessary for proper investigation,’’ the FIR said.
The CJM, in its order, mentioned that Emaar and MGF entered into a memorandum of understanding on March 7, 2015, for the purposes of demerger and on April 13, 2016, Emaar and MGF signed a warranty indemnity agreement (WIA) and litigation indemnity agreement (LIA) with the terms and conditions mentioned therein.
“But the accused persons exploited the WIA and LIA and committed serious cognisable offences of crores of rupees for their wrongful gain and wrongful loss to the complainant. Emaar’s CEO Amit Jain, vide letter July 26, 2017, threatened to cause injury to person and property of Shravan Gupta of MGF to settle the indemnity claims. The accused also forged board meeting minutes of May 23, 2016, and power given to MGF representative were revoked by EMGF, whereas no such action was proposed in agenda,’’ said the court while reproducing the complaint said.
Forged reports on demerged assets
The complaint said that Emaar on September 14, 2019, appointed Jones Lang Laselle (JLL) as an independent valuer arbitrarily and in contravention of the WIA. It allegedly forged reports pertaining to the category-B demerged assets in conspiracy with JLL to decrease the value of MGF’s land and inflate the value of Emaar’s claim to unjustly enrich themselves, which is apparent from the fact that JLL produced such reports in collusion with Emaar for different chunks of land within 72 hours and also from the fact that the sale consideration of the adjoining lands in other different sale deeds is many times higher than the assessed value of MGF’s land, the complaint said.
It further said that Emaar was entrusted with category-B demerged properties under the WIA and LIA as a part of the demerger scheme but dishonestly misappropriated the said properties to the detriment of the complainant in the breach of the WIA and LIA by deflating the value of category-B demerged assets in connivance with JLL and its officers and inflating its own claim. Emaar, JLL and their officers fraudulently and dishonestly induced MGF to believe that the usurpation of category-B demerged assets was bona-fide whereas neither the claims were genuine nor was the valuation of the assets true, the complaint said.
