Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday raided multiple premises of Mumbai-based real estate company Nirmal Lifestyle in a money laundering case.
ED sleuths swooped down on the residences and offices of Nirmal Lifestyle promoters and director duo Dharmesh Jain and Rajiv Jain for allegedly duping several flat buyers to the tune of ₹11 crore promising them homes in 2010-11 which were not delivered till date despite repeated extension of deadline.
The ED case is based on three cases of alleged housing fraud registered by the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) against the developers who were arrested in April.
Realtor duped buyers by continuously extending the deadline
The developer had allegedly duped 54 flat buyers who had paid for flats in the 39-story high-rise Zircon project located on LBS Marg, Mulund. Other flat buyers from the same project’s other wings, Amethyst and Turquoise, had similarly paid the developer but did not receive their flats.
The Housing-2 unit of EOW had in December 2021 registered an FIR under sections 406, 409, 420, and 120B of the Indian Penal Code and 3, 4, 5, 8, and 13 of the Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act (MOFA) against directors of Nirmal Lifestyle—Dharmesh Jain, Rajeev Jain, Puja Jain, and others. A total of ₹49.54 crore fraud was recorded by the EOW against the company directors.
Did not deliver
According to the EOW’s probe, the developer had assured home buyers it will hand over the flats to them by December 2015, but it only completed 90 per cent of the work of Zircon, 50–70 per cent of Amethyst, and 50–60 per cent of Turquoise, all three projects in suburban Mulund. The developers failed to complete the three housing projects and failed to give possession to flat owners.
“Despite accepting money from homebuyers, the developer did not use it for building the projects. The developer misused the money by diverting it to their other companies and establishments,” EOW has said.
The complainant home buyers had moved the housing regulator MahaRERA against the developer in April 2019 and the RERA authority had extended deadline for the completion of the housing project. The regulator also directed the Jain duo to pay monthly rent to the flat buyers. Despite repeated extensions the developer failed to complete the projects.
