Unitech bosses sent to police custody in fraud case

New Delhi: The promoters of real estate firm Unitech Ltd, Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra, have been sent to police custody for four days by a Delhi court in an alleged cheating case relating to a housing project in Greater Noida.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sandeep Garg remanded them custody for interrogation into an FIR lodged by an 85-year-old woman alleging fraud by the firm and its Directors for not handing over an apartment booked by her in 2006.

The FIR, lodged in 2016, said that in March 2006, Unitech Ltd had floated a residential project in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh called 'Unitech Cascades' which was booked by her the same year for an amount of Rs 43 lakh.

Out of this amount, she had already paid Rs 41 lakh for the flat, which was to be given to her by April 2008 as per he flat buyer cum allottment letter, it claimed.

However, as the delivery date approached, the company officials told them they were running behind schedule and the flat would be allotted by the last quarter of 2008.

Soon, the company officials stopped responding to the complainant's queries and did not update her about the progress of the construction, the FIR alleged, adding that till date, the construction was not complete.

The Chandras have been accused of offences under sections 120B(criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 406(criminal breach of trust) of the IPC.

In the same housing project, another buyer had lodged an alleged cheating complaint against the promoters in which a sessions judge had last year ordered initiation of proceedings against Chandras saying they had "guilty intention to cheat from the beginning".

In the last few years, several FIRs have been lodged against the Unitech top brass for allegedly cheating homebuyers by not delivering them properties purchased from their firm's housing projects.

Sanjay and his brother Ajay Chandra, both managing directors of Unitech, were sent to jail last month in connection with a cheating case registered against them by flat-owners in a Gurgaon project. A trial court had granted them interim bail for three months in April and declined to extend it.