Rs 77 lakh cash seized from builder Agarwal’s office, EOW seeks his custody

The builder was produced in court on Tuesday and remanded to judicial custody, following which the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) from Mumbai crime branch filed an application seeking his custody.

While investigating builder Pujit Agarwal who has allegedly cheated banks of crores of rupees, the Azad Maidan police have seized 77.06 lakh cash from his Worli office. Four laptops and two hard disks too were confiscated.

Pujit Aggarwal, managing director and chief executive officer of developer firm Orbit Corporation. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

The builder was produced in court on Tuesday and remanded to judicial custody, following which the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) from Mumbai crime branch filed an application seeking his custody.

Speaking about the case, senior inspector Vijay Kadam from Azad Maidan police station said, “Agarwal has duped several other investors including banks, but till date we approached only Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) who is trying to recover their money by taking over his property and mortgaging them. After that we stopped approaching other investors who lost their money as they are working on recovering their money personally.”

The EOW is seeking Agarwal’s custody as they are investigating a separate FIR which has been registered by the same complainant — Capri Global Capital Limited (CGCL).

In May, a case was registered against Pujit Agarwal and his father by the complainant Ashok Agarwal, a senior vice president of CGCL who was duped to the tune of Rs 2.53 crore in exchange of three flats in Orbit Residency Park in Saki Naka. The builder had taken a huge loan from LIC Housing and Finance Limited (LICHFL). He was supposed to deposit the sale amount of all the flats in an escrow account with HDFC but as he failed to do so, LICHFL took over the property and mortgaged the flats, following which a complaint was registered.