HC quashes FIR against EMAAR India, others

They were 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 Punjab and Haryana high court has quashed a criminal case registered against 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 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.

The high court bench of justice Pankaj Jain observed that the impugned order by the chief judicial magistrate does not show “application” of mind on the part of the magistrate as to which cognisable offence, he found, was disclosed in the complaint (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

They were 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 allegations were that land at Sector 63 (Kadarpur), Sector 63 (Maidawas), 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, 2023, on the directions of a Gurugram chief judicial magistrate passed on November 18, the same year. The complaint was filed in October 2023.

The high court bench of justice Pankaj Jain observed that the impugned order by the chief judicial magistrate does not show “application” of mind on the part of the magistrate as to which cognisable offence, he found, was disclosed in the complaint.

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). De-merger scheme was approved by National Company Law Tribunal in July 2018. The joint venture, M/S Emaar MGF Land Private Limited was launched in 2004 and converted to a public limited company as M/S Emaar MGF Land Limited.

The court further recorded that the complainant, after failing to get an FIR registered by Gurugram police, filed a complaint before Delhi Police on the same set of allegations. Delhi Police also found that the matter was primarily of civil nature. “Thus, it is a case not only of material concealment but also of forum shopping,” it said.

It further added that allegations levelled do not satisfy the ingredients of a criminal offence and was “an abuse of process of law”.