75-year-old realtor held as projects at standstill for three years

GURUGRAM: The 75-year-old promoter and director of AN Buildwell has been arrested by the economic offence wing (EoW) of Delhi Police on charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust after homebuyers who booked flats in the realtor's Spire Woods project in Gurgaon filed a complaint against him.

The project stalled after the developer abandoned it three years ago, and the realty firm is under liquidation.

Surendra Kumar Hooda was arrested on September 20 and has been hospitalised since. On Tuesday, the Saket court rejected Hooda's bail application and sent him to judicial custody.

More than 1,700 buyers have invested in two projects of AN Buildwell — Spire Edge In Manesar, a commercial project, and Spire Woods in Sector 103, a housing project.

Mired in controversy since the launch of the two projects, all directors of AN Buildwell resigned, and construction work at their sites has been at a standstill for three years. The company went into liquidation in 2016.

A group of homebuyers filed a police complaint, based on which an FIR under section 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) was filed at Sarita Vihar police station in Delhi in March 2016. The registered office of the company is in Delhi, though its projects are in Gurgaon. In June 2016, the case was transferred to the economic offence wing of Delhi Police.

"Since there was no progress in the case even several months after filing a complaint against the builder, we approached Saket court in February 2017 seeking a court-monitored probe," said Anuj Kumar, one of the homebuyers who filed the police complaint. He said the EoW started the investigation on the directive of the court.

In a hearing on August 8, the complainants alleged that the realtor had not been arrested because of his "political connections".

They accused the developer of siphoning off crores of rupees the homebuyers had invested. Following this, the court directed police to arrest Hooda.

In a report submitted before the court of chief judicial magistrate Manish Khurana on September 22, investigating officer Dharmendra Kuma mentioned that Hooda, the promoter and director of AN Buildwell, was arrested on September 20, and had been in hospital since. The investigating officer said efforts were being made to arrest other directors of the company.

Advocate Maninder Singh, the counsel for Hooda, while seeking bail for his client on Tuesday said, "My client is suffering from various ailments, and he was implicated in the case."

Rejecting the bail application, the court observed that since the accused collected funds from the public at large in violation of the conditions of the licence granted to his company, and resigned from its directorship, "the court is of opinion that he is not entitled to be accorded the benefit of bail at this stage".