Designer booked for shoddy ₹19 crore interiors in ₹153-crore flat in Worli

Interior designer charged ₹19 crore for luxury flat renovations using high-quality material but delivered low-quality work, leaving it incomplete. Booked by police.

A well-known interior designer, who allegedly charged a Worli-based businessman ₹19 crore for using marbles and furniture from Milan and Amsterdam in his luxury flat in Oberoi Three Sixty West but instead used low-quality material and left the work midway, was booked on Friday, police said.

Mumbai, India. Mar 01,2024 - One of the flat owners of 360 west highrise tower,Worli filed a cheating complaint against the interior designer in the Economic offence wing (EOW). Mar 01,2024. (Photo by Raju Shinde/HT Photo)

According to the police, Madhav Prasad Satyanarayan Aggarwal and Sushma Madhav Prasad Aggarwal, directors of Fujizakura Private Limited in Prabhadevi, had bought the flat in December 2020 and Ishita, their daughter, was supposed to stay in it. Initially, it was decided that interior architects and designers, Neterwala and Aibara, would be hired for the job, said an Economic Offences Wing (EOW) officer.

Ishita, through a common friend, met Krish Kothari, who runs Beauvue Stiledivita Private Limited in Prabhadevi. She later met him along with her father when Kothari showed them samples of marble and furniture of foreign brands, the officer said. “He even told them he could give bills for everything. An agreement was signed between them in April 2022.”

Later, Kothari took Ishita and her sister Priyanka to Milan and Amsterdam to check out the furniture and marble, and the expenses for the trip were borne by the company. In September 2022, Kothari submitted a bill of quantity of around ₹20 crore, specifying the quality and quantity of material.

“He told the Aggarwal family that work would be completed by June 2023, and if not, he would pay ₹16 lakh per month in fine for the delay. However, later he started asking for more time and claimed that everything was customised and the orders were huge. He even didn’t allow them to see the flat,” the police officer said.

In June, when the Aggarwals visited the flat they found that the material used was of inferior quality and not imported. The design differed from what was shown to them, and bills for only some of the expenses were submitted, the officer said. “As a lot of work was yet to be completed, Kothari returned around ₹1.28 crore to them.”

Ashutosh Sharma, who works as project head in Fujizakura Private Limited, filed a complaint with the EOW of Mumbai police. The complainant claimed ₹19 crore was transferred to Kothari’s bank account. While bills for payment of ₹9 crore to vendors, ₹3 crore as GST, and ₹94 lakh towards designing fees had been submitted, he had neither returned around ₹5.19 crore nor produced bills for the amount, the complaint said.

“We have registered a case against Kothari and his mother, Priya, under section 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code at Dadar police station,” the EOW officer said.