FIR filed against IREO estate executives, Oberoi Realty for cheating & fraud

Gurugram, June 10 (IANS) Following the local court directions, Gurugram Police has booked the managing directors of Oberoi Realty Limited and IREO Group, Vikas Oberoi and Lalit Goyal and others on a complaint of cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery filed by another company AIPL, an official said on Monday.

The FIR registered under sections 471, 468, 467, 420, 409 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code at DLF Phase-II police station is pertaining to the same project for which Oberoi Realty Limited had recently informed the stock exchanges of its entry into Delhi NCR luxury segment by entering into a joint venture with IREO.

Beside Oberoi and Goyal, the police have named Rajendra Kumar Yadav, S. K. Aggarwal, Anupam Nagalia, Directors, IREO Residences Company Private Limited, Pankaj Duggar, the CEO of IREO Hospitalities, Oberoi Realty Limited through its directors, Bhaskar Kshirsagar, the Company Secretary of Oberoi Realty Limited and Saumil Ashwin Daru, Executive Director of Oberoi Realty Limited, as the accused in the FIR.

According to the FIR, accessed by IANS, IREO Residences Company Private Limited took up the project of development of a residential colony on land measuring approximately 17.224 Acres (Said Land) in village Ghata, Sector-58, Gurugram.

The FIR said that the company had taken up this project from another company, Commander Realtors Private Limited, who had the approval for setting up the residential colony on the said land from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning, Haryana.

“Having so taken up the above-mentioned residential project, the company partnered with many other companies /investors, besides collecting money from proposed buyers in the shape of booking advance. In this manner, the company through its functionaries collected over Rs. 124 Crores from prospective home buyers and overall, they have managed to collect about Rs.400 Crores, other sources included,” read the FIR.

The FIR further outlined that despite these collections, the company allegedly failed to progress the project satisfactorily, leading to multiple legal challenges from home buyers, including a notable case and petitions under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code before the NCLT.

The complainant further in the FIR alleged that caught in litigation and unable to proceed with the project, Lalit Goyal and Pankaj Duggar, on behalf of IREO, approached Advance India Projects Limited (AIPL), in July 2020.

They requested AIPL to take over two troubled projects, including the Grand Hyatt Residences in Gurugram, under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on March 2, 2021.

The FIR alleged that IREO misled AIPL by presenting the Grand Hyatt Residences project as viable, despite financial difficulties and ongoing litigation. Acting on these representations, AIPL committed significant resources, incurring losses of approximately Rs 1000 crore, while IREO allegedly manipulated the situation to avoid insolvency and legal repercussions.

“Complainant incurred liability under the MOU to pay/provide property to prospective buyers, besides which, the Complainant engaged KNM Partners, a reputed law firm for carrying out the process of due diligence. The Complainant further spent its resources on streamlining the project, and in the process, incurred huge expenditures. In addition to the above, the Complainant expended resources, money, workforce and time and energy on the project,” the FIR read.

Moreover, the FIR claims that IREO did not facilitate the due diligence required by the MoU and continued negotiations with other developers, breaching the terms of the agreement and causing substantial financial and reputational damage to AIPL.

“The various acts that were to be performed by the company which they intentionally refrained from in pursuance of the criminal conspiracy hatched by the company including lack of cooperation in getting the due diligence completed, are inter-alia, enumerated hereunder: Facilitating settlements with dissenting/aggrieved customers in terms of Clause 9 of the MOU. Facilitating release of various title deeds pertaining to the Project Land lying in the custody of the Shared Security Custodian in terms of Clause 6(h) of the MOU,” read the FIR.

This comes after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) Gurugram Zonal office in May had provisionally attached properties valued at Rs 58.93 crore under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA) belonging to IREO Group of companies and others which is alleged to have siphoned off Rs 1780 crore of homebuyers' money. The attached properties include land parcels and bank accounts.

The financial probe agency had initiated an investigation on the basis of multiple FIRs registered against real estate company IREO Pvt. Ltd., associated entities, its directors, key managerial persons and others at various police stations across Gurugram, Panchkula, Ludhiana, and Delhi etc.

ED investigation had revealed that they duped the innocent buyers by promising them to deliver flats/ plots/ commercial spaces etc., however, they neither delivered the projects nor returned the buyer’s money.

It had said that rather, they sent such money outside of India in the form of buy-back of shares, redemptions, FCDs etc. and giving loans and advances to associated entities/persons, giving excessive incentives and advances to key managerial persons.

“The buyer’s money has also been diverted to other companies, which was identified during the investigation. The total Proceeds of Crime identified in the case is Rs1780 Crore,” the ED had official.