Gurgaon housing society prez booked for Rs. 7-cr fraud

Between February 2015 and March 2016, he allegedly collected the money for plots from prospective buyers and then duped them.

City police on Sunday booked the president of a society under the Cooperative Group Housing Societies’ (CGHS) for allegedly duping members to the tune of Rs. 7 crore.

The police identified the accused as Ishpal Bharadwaj, a Gurgaon resident. Between February 2015 and March this year, he allegedly collected the money for plots from prospective buyers, most of them Delhi residents, for a residential society and then duped them.

The residential society, Shiv Shankar (GHS), is located in Sector 51 of Sadar area, Gurgaon.

The police further said though Bharadwaj collected the money from prospective buyers, he did not deposit the amount with the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda).

The police said a complaint accusing Bharadwaj of fraud was registered by New Delhi resident Dinesh Kumar Malik, one of the victims. Malik lost Rs. 5 lakh and is one of the 200 complainants, the police said.

He told the police that the accused had collected money from all the members of the society but didn’t deposit it with the Huda.

After several complaints accusing Bharadwaj of cheating investors surfaced, the case was transferred to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), which investigated the matter and found that the allegations were true.

Based on the EOW findings, the police have now lodged a case against Bharadwaj under sections 420 (cheating), 406 (breach of trust) and 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property) at Sadar police station.

“We have lodged the case. The accused will be held for questioning. It seems to be a case of cheating. We have received many complaints against the chairman of this society,” a police spokesperson said.