A 58-year-old civil engineer was arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of investing in real estate with promises of high returns, the police said on Wednesday.
The accused has been identified as Sanjay Chawla, a resident of Gurugram, they said. Chawla cheated over 53 people of ₹9 crore, the police said.
The police received a complaint and registered a case against one Adel Landmarks Ltd. (formerly known as Era Landmarks Ltd, police said.
Company project
The complainants alleged that in March 2011, the company had made a pre-launch of a project by the name of ‘Cosmo Court’ which was to come up at Sector-86, Gurugram, a senior police officer said.
The alleged company and its representatives misled the investors that it had already acquired 17 acres of land and obtained the licences to start the project, the officer said.
They induced the complainants to start making payments for bookings for the project in the pre-launch stage, stating that it is very nominal at this stage and once the project is officially launched, the rates would double, the police said.
The company started accepting booking amounts from the investors much before the necessary approvals were obtained from the authority, they said.
The alleged project was abandoned. Neither the amount received from the victim was returned nor the project completed, the officer said.“The investigation has revealed that Chawla was one of the directors and authorised signatory in the company. He was arrested on Monday and later on released on bail as per the direction of court,” Additional Commissioner of Police (EOW) Raj Kumar Singh said.
Previously during investigation, two accused persons Sumit Bharana and Hem Singh Bharana, who were promoters of this project, had been arrested in this case, the police said.
Chawla used to convince most of the customers to invest their money with the assurance that the same would be doubled, the police added.
