Nitesh Estates Limited, a real estate company, is in the dock for allegedly duping as many as 50 customers of ₹120 crore after promising delivery of villas and residential apartments. The Central Crime Branch (CCB) on Tuesday evening raided the company’s corporate office on M.G. Road.
This action was taken after the Halasuru police station received a series of complaints from buyers. On March 19, angry customers barged into the realtor’s M.G. Road office and staged a protest. Police Commissioner T. Suneel Kumar referred the case to the CCB which recovered several documents during the raid.
Chaitanya Shiroor, one of the complainants, claimed that Nitesh Shetty, owner of the company, offered to build and hand over villas to him and 50 others in its ‘Nitesh Napa Valley’ project at Yelahanka in 2012. They told the police that till March 2019 they had paid the builder ₹120 crore, but the company neither constructed the villas as promised nor returned their money.
Another customer, Mahesh S. Rao from Kadugodi, said he’s still waiting for ₹3.5 crore he put down for a villa at the same site.
Nanda Kumar P.T., who also filed a police complaint in connection with another project ‘Nitesh Columbus Square’ in Bagaluru, claimed to have paid ₹53 lakh from 2011 to 2014 for a residential apartment, and is still waiting to take possession of his flat.
“We are verifying the documents seized. No arrest has been made so far,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (crime) Alok Kumar who is supervising the investigations.
Nitesh Estates has filed a counter complaint against the customers who barged into its office on March 19. The management accused them of ransacking the premises, creating a commotion and threatening staff.
Apart from customers, there is a long list of vendors who are demanding justice. One of them is Govindaswamy K., the owner of DNS Computers Pvt. Ltd. On March 30, he filed a cheating complaint against Nitesh Estates for allegedly refusing to pay ₹7.5 lakh for laptops that were rented from his company. He alleged that the realtor had availed of 30 laptops from his company in September 2017.
A police officer said, “Govindaswamy told us that he received the rent promptly only for the first month. After that, Nitesh Estates executives started avoiding him.” They allegedly threatened him when he tried to get the laptops back.