Four builders bought my properties worth ₹16,000 cr for ₹826 cr: DSK
Supreme Court (SC) granted a stay of the sale of his properties to a 4-member consortium till May 11.
Beleaguered real estate developer Deepak Sakharam Kulkarni alias DSK has alleged that four developers had bought his ₹16,000 crore worth of properties for a pittance taking advantage of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Challenging the NCLT order recently, DSK moved the Supreme Court (SC) which had granted a stay of the sale of his properties to a 4-member consortium till May 11.
Reacting to the development, DSK said, “I emphatically state that my current situation is such that I am neither bankrupt nor into debt. Till December 2016, I had zero outstanding, and we were regularly meeting the investors. We were giving money back to the investors but the number of investors demanding refunds went as high as 32,000 individuals in one go, which was difficult to manage. I want to pay all my investors as I have properties which can be sold to pay all investors,” he said.
Pointing out how he became a victim of the crisis, the real estate developer said, “When I was jailed, my company was under insolvency when four real-estate developers came together and taking advantage of the NCLT act, bought my gold-like company which has 300-acre dream city, Balewadi, Baner, properties in Mumbai aggregating 11 properties, which are worth ₹21,000 crore as per my estimates for a pittance. However, according to the government evaluators, it is worth ₹16,000 crore. These 11 properties have been bought for a meagre ₹826 crores in 2019 while I was in jail, and they will give this money in seven tranches.”
Claiming that injustice was meted out to him, DSK said, “I was not asked before the sale and hence filed a case in the court. I have been made a scapegoat in this process. Many major companies have self-declared bankrupt and have been bailed out of the crisis, but I have been the biggest victim of the process. My accounts were frozen, and I could not repay my customers. So, from where could I get my money as I was blocked from all sides.”
Kulkarni said he was one of the best two-wheeler dealers in the country and restrictions were brought to prevent the sale of two-wheelers.
“I will pay all my investors in the next six months, and I am confident that I will get my company back.”
It was in July 2022, nearly 40 months after his arrest, one of Pune’s most prominent real estate developers, Kulkarni, popularly known as DSK, was granted bail by the Supreme Court in connection with the ₹2,043 crore investors’ fraud case.
The city police had lodged a case against him at Shivajinagar police station on October 28, 2017. The realtor was booked under IPC sections 406, 409, 411, 418, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 109, 120-B and sections 3 and 4 of Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors (MPID) Act.