‘Custodial interrogation required to unearth the conspiracy and recover cheated amount’
‘Custodial interrogation required to unearth the conspiracy and recover cheated amount’
The Delhi High Court has rejected the anticipatory bail plea of a 65-year-old cancer patient and one of the directors of a real estate firm that allegedly duped home buyers to the tune of ₹150 crore over a housing project launched in 2012 at Bahadurgarh in Haryana’s Jhajjar district.
Justice Anu Malhotra also removed the interim protection from arrest granted earlier by the court to the accused Sajjan Singh Beniwal. She cited that his custodial interrogation would be required to unearth the conspiracy allegedly hatched between the accused persons and their associates and to recover the cheated amount.
Mr. Beniwal, who is a prostate cancer patient, if required, can take chemotherapy sessions in custody under police protection, the Bench ordered.
The case stems from a complaint lodged by 56 home buyers with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi police in April 2019, complaining that Prabhu Shanti Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. had failed to deliver their flats, despite complete payment of the booking money.
The customers complained that the real estate firm had promised to deliver the flats within two-and-a-half years but had failed to do so. They said the firm cheated them of their hard-earned money, which the firm is neither returning with interest nor providing them with a flat.
As per the complaint, the firm had floated its residential project ‘P.D.M. Hi-Tech Homes’ consisting of more than 435 flats on 8.976 acres of land in Sector-3A, Bahadurgarh.
The High Court noted that the real estate firm used to pay the directors a monthly remuneration of ₹13.90 lakh during the financial year 2016-17 and ₹8.51 lakh during 2017-18, even as the company reported a loss of ₹1.91 crore.
“The contention raised by the applicant (Mr. Beniwal) that he was not in any manner involved in the process of duping innocent flat buyers investing their hard-earned money into the project of P.D.M. Hi-Tech Homes prima facie, cannot be accepted at this stage,” the High Court said.
Mr. Beniwal, in his plea, had submitted that he is a senior citizen and a retired government servant with a clean record having served the Irrigation Department for 33 years. He said that he is a patient of prostate cancer stage 4 and has been undergoing treatment at the Action Cancer Hospital in New Delhi since 2019.
He asked the court to consider his bail plea, saying that he was not likely to abscond as he had already joined the investigation. Mr. Beniwal had also submitted that he has not been the beneficiary of any proceeds and was not involved in the day-to-day affairs of the company.
