Mumbai: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police has arrested Nirmal Lifestyle developers Dharmesh and Rajeev Jain, for allegedly duping homebuyers. Both the arrested accused are alleged to have taken money from buyers but failed to provide them with flats. Bookings were accepted but the projects are yet to begin. The duo were produced in court on Thursday, which remanded both the accused in EOW custody till May 3.
According to an EOW officer, the complainant had purchased a flat in the Nirmal Lifestyle project in 2011, supposed to be handed over to the buyer by 2017, but the builders failed to meet any of their deadlines.
The complainant in this case, Advocate Godfrey Pimenta, told The Free Press Journal that more than 200 people had paid money to buy houses in these projects, but the builders of Nirmal Lifestyle have not laid even a single brick at the site. So far, the builders have reportedly taken at least Rs 100 crore from the buyers. Four projects by Nirmal Lifestyle, namely Olympia, Omega, Panorama and Nirmal One Spirit, were under way, with buyers having booked flats in these projects, the EOW officer said.
Homebuyers filed a complaint with Mulund police
The builder had set the dates for the handover of the flats, but several deadlines passed after that, without the buyers getting possession. Enraged homebuyers then lodged a complaint with the Mulund police.
Since the amount of cheating ran into crores of rupees, the case was transferred to the EOW. In the course of its investigation, the EOW arrested Dharmesh Jain and Rajeev Jain of Nirmal Lifestyle. An EOW officer said that so far, 34 homebuyers had complained that in all, Rs 11 crore had been paid by them to Nirmal Lifestyle. The number of complainants in the case was likely to increase, the officer said.
A senior citizen residing in Mulund disclosed that in 2004, he had made 80 per cent of the payment towards a flat in Nirmal Lifestyle’s Amethyst Cooperative Housing Society project in Mulund, but to date, he is yet to get his house.
