Realty firm directors booked for cheating homebuyers in Gurugram

According to police, buyers have alleged that they paid their hard-earned money to the firm on different occasions between 2013 and 2015 for purchasing apartments in different towers of Vatika Tranquil Heights in Sector 82A, which was shown as coming up on 11.21 acres

Police have booked real estate firm Vatika Limited and its directors for allegedly cheating homebuyers of more than ₹3.3 crore by promising them apartments on a plot for which they did not have any permission to undertake construction or development, senior officers said on Thursday

The victims in their complaint said Vatika only possessed a licence to develop towers A and B, but some of the complainants were sold units in Tower E. (Photo for representation)

According to police, buyers have alleged that they paid their hard-earned money to the firm on different occasions between 2013 and 2015 for purchasing apartments in different towers of Vatika Tranquil Heights in Sector 82A, which was shown as coming up on 11.21 acres.

However, it later came to fore that the firm only had licence and permission to carry out constructions over a 5.41 acre plot, while the rest of the land is owned privately by a single individual.

The victims in their complaint said Vatika only possessed a licence to develop towers A and B, but some of the complainants were sold units in Tower E, which has no sanction from the authorities.

Investigators said there were several victims in the case but at least 11 of them, including a few based abroad, moved the court against the developer as they neither got their planned property nor the money which they had paid even after a decade.

A spokesperson for Vatika developers said that they complainants paid ₹60.92 lakh for the apartment. They were refunded ₹26 lakh as per the HRERA order, the spokesperson added.

The company said it procured a licence to develop the project on 11.218 acres. “The company will cooperate with the authorities,” the spokesperson said.

They said the plot, which was shown as a part of the 11.21 acre project, is owned privately by a person with whom the developer neither had any agreement nor had they purchased it from the owner.

According to police, the individual owner has a farmhouse on the plot and he had also submitted a complaint against the real estate firm before department of town and country planning (DTCP) and Gurugram police alleging that the firm perpetrated a fraud by showing his private property as theirs for carrying out construction work.

Police said the complainants have alleged that even in such a scenario, the builder convinced them that multiple towers will come up on the plot on the basis of which agreements were signed with the developer and payments made.

Investigators said the complainants said the original plan was to develop the towers and hand over possession of the apartments within 48 months of agreement but hardly 20% of the project has been completed. This was revealed in a site inspection by a government executive engineer who was appointed by Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

Inspector Ajay Kumar, station house officer (SHO) of Kherki Daula police station, said that they will seek all the records from the court to proceed with the investigation. “Once the records are made available to us, we will serve notice to the complainants as well as to the firm and its directors to appear for questioning after which necessary action will be taken and the court will be appraised,” he said.