A Delhi magistrate and his brother, among thousands, paid a lakh each to book flats under what they thought was India's largest housing project. Six years later, the company claims it never offered homes
A Delhi magistrate and his brother, among thousands, paid a lakh each to book flats under what they thought was India's largest housing project. Six years later, the company claims it never offered homes
SPREAD across 217 towns and cities and involving thousands of middle-class investors, it started out in 2003 as arguably India's biggest housing dream.
Six years later, many of these investors say the dream has left them sleepless; that not a single brick has been laid in Gurgaon, Mumbai or any of the promised locations under the Sahara Swarn Yojna and Sahara Rajat Yojna.
The Sahara group rubbishes their grouse, saying it had never promised anybody homes under the scheme (read story on Sahara's clarification). It also says aggrieved parties were offered their money back.
However, forms that subscribers were made to fill up under the scheme carried location options of the property, among other things.
One of those who were offered their money back was Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at the Patiala House Court Ajay Pandey and his brother Neeraj Pandey, who had subscribed under the Sahara Swarn Yojna.
They refused, admittedly for "greater public good", and are now among the most dogged campaigners against what Neeraj calls Sahara's "duping of thousands of investors across the country".
Ajay Pandey's complaints of forgery, cheating, "dishonestly inducing delivery of property" and criminal conspiracy against Sahara India Commercial Corporation Limited (SICCL) and the group's owner Subroto Roy was taken up in an FIR by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in mid-August. Neeraj's case is on at Delhi's Karkardooma district court.
Raja Harpal Singh, a journalist working for an Urdu daily, registered a case against SICCL at the Kashmere Gate police station on October 24 for criminal breach of trust, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property.
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In the FIR, he accused the company of taking money from him under the two schemes without having even purchased any land for the projects. He also accused the company of making false representations and withholding his money.
In September 2007, a consumer dispute redressal forum in Chandigarh reportedly asked SICCL to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to one RK Sharma, a subscriber of the Sahara Swarn Yojna, for failing to allot him a house though he had made the necessary payments even after three years of registration.
Also, hearing a case filed by Darshan Singh at Delhi's Patel Nagar police station, a trial court allowed investigators to conduct searches at SICCL's command office in Lucknow and three of its buildings in Noida last year.
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The investigating officer told the court during a recent hearing that besides Singh, at least 17 others have joined as complainants, claiming that the company cheated them on the pretext of providing houses in Gurgaon at cheap rates.
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Several complaints are pending with various consumer complaint forums where the company was accused of backing out on its promise to deliver houses.
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"The agent, HS Rawat, told me that the company will build 217 townships across the country, including Delhi and Mumbai.
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He showed us the portfolio of the company to prove the authenticity of the scheme," said Neeraj Pandey, an accounts manager with a private firm.
u00a0He claimed that they were shown documents and pamphlets that bore Sahara India Chairman Subroto Roy's message.
Both invested in the Sahara Swarn Yojna and were paying Rs 10,000 in monthly installments. "We were told that the remaining money will have to be paid after the allotment of the house," Neeraj said.
While the company claimed that Sahara Swarn Yojna was never a housing scheme, the complainants said the application form had a column "preference of the city for purchase of immovable property (residential/commercial)".
Neeraj also showed a pamphlet of Sahara City Homes which mentions Sahara Swarn Yojna as a mode of application.
He said Clause 14 of the terms and conditions, attached to the application form, mentioned that the subscriber would be kept informed about the progress of the project, they were never intimated about any developments during the months installments were being paid.
With nothing coming his way, Neeraj decided to visit the company headquarters at Lucknow in December 2004. "I was reassured by the company executives and they made me talk to Saharashree Subroto Roy.
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I don't know if it really was Roy, but the man at the other end said the project was huge, and that I should contact my area manager to know how it was shaping up.
I returned and followed his directive. I was told that we would get possession by January 2008."
The company, however, rejected that Ajay or Neeraj ever spoke to Subroto Roy or any director of the company over the phone.
Neeraj and his brother waited till January. "Then Rawat confessed that the company has not constructed any flat and they will not get their money back," he said.
According to SICCL, it sent account payee cheques for Rs 1,58,567 towards the final settlement of accounts to Neeraj and Ajay on April 6, 2009, after the former approached the company branch at Shahadra in east Delhi.
However, Neeraj charged that he and his brother got their money back only after a case was filed in the Karkardooma court on April 1.
"When I came to know that we are not the only victims and there is already a complaint registered at Patel Nagar police station, I decided to fight and approached the local police station to file an FIR, but they refused to do so," Neeraj said.
While the cheques came separately by post, Neeraj alleged that Rawat came and threatened to eliminate his family if he did not withdraw his case. An FIR was registered at the Bhajanpura police station in this regard.
Meanwhile, Ajay approached the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in April and after investigations by the police, an FIR was filed against Subroto Roy and directors of the company.
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The complainants refuted the charge by SICCL that they took recourse in criminal proceedings even after the Delhi High Court quashed their case while hearing an arbitration petition filed by the company on September 11.
"Ajay was made the respondent in the petition and a similar petition is pending against me as well.
The SICCL failed to mention that Justice SN Dhingra, before quashing the petition, also said the order did not stop us from initiating civil or criminal proceedings," Neeraj said.
Vivek Gogia, additional commissioner of police, Economic Offences Wing, couldn't be reached for a comment despite repeated phone calls and messages.
The Other Side
'Sahara never offered to provide a house or flat to the members of the scheme'
Sahara India Commercial Corporation Ltd spokesperson clarifies:
>> The Sahara Swarn Yojna/Sahara Rajat Yojna were advance funding schemes that only entitled the subscribers to secure a credit value, which was to be adjusted against the price of the product/service, availed by the member of the scheme.
>> Sahara India Commercial Corporation Ltd (SICCL) never offered to provide a house/flat/immovable property in Delhi to the members of the scheme.
>> Neither the complainants filled any conversion form for conversion of their credit value to allotment of any immovable properties/residential unit/flat in Sahara City Homes. The credit value lying in complainant's account was miniscule, so far as conversion to any immovable properties/ residential unit/flat is concerned.
>> In or around second week of February 2009 Neeraj Pandey visited the Shahdra branch of the company and asked for refund/redemption of his and his brother's accounts.
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Dissatisfied with the amount of the accrued credit value Neeraj threatened to take legal action.
The SICCL branch office sent the principal amount along with the accrued value amounting to Rs 1,58,567 to Ajay and Neeraj Pandey through account payee cheques on April 6, 2009.
>> The Pandey brothers refused to encash the cheques and demanded unless one flat each was allotted
to them they would take Sahara to task.
>> SICCL initiated arbitration proceedings in the Delhi High Court. Inspite of the Arbitration Clause incorporated in the said scheme and the Arbitration proceedings having already initiated, complainant Neeraj Pandey and his brother have rather chosen to initiate criminal proceedings and Neeraj filed a complaint before the ACMM Karkardooma, to achieve his malafide object.
>> Similarly, Ajay Pandey has lodged a complaint with Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police, reiterating almost same facts as stated in the complaint by Neeraj Pandey.
>> The complaint and the FIR is a bunch of concocted, exaggerated and fabricated facts in order to launch a criminal prosecution.
>> It's incorrect and denied that the complainants Neeraj or Ajay Pandey ever spoke on telephone to chairman or any director of the company.
>> The FIR was already quashed by the Delhi High Court. The facts referred to in the FIR were related to brochures leaflets etc pertaining to Sahara City Homes project, a completely different scheme to the Sahara Swarn Yojna.
>> SICCL has at no point of time breached any of the terms of the contract (scheme) that Neeraj Pandey and Ajay Pandey had voluntarily desired to enter into.
>> The counsel for Ajay Pandey, respondent in the Arbitration petition filed before the Delhi High Court, stated that Sahara has tendered the cheque to the respondent and he had accepted the refund hence, there was no dispute pending between the parties in respect of the contract entered upon between the petitioner and the respondent under the scheme.
>> On August 11, 2009 Neeraj Pandey reached the Noida office of the company and threatened and abused the officer in charge, demanding payment of Rs 10 lakh towards settlement of his account. An FIR was lodged in Sector 24 police station at Noida.
>> Since the Arbitration protocol already resulted in 'no dispute', the complaint as well as the FIR are not only against the law but totally unwarranted, uncalled for and without any legal force.
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