A cheating case was registered against builders Wadhwa Group and Sai Consultancy with DN Nagar police on Saturday by a retired professional who claimed a flat that he bought from them was sold to and occupied by another buyer. The complainant Ajitkumar Hegde (61) told the police that he had paid the builders a total of ₹2,30,80,000 since November 2011 to buy a flat in the posh project named ‘The Nest’.Upon visiting the building on its completion in December 2022, the complainant was told that the flat he had bought had been sold and occupied by another buyer. Both builders kept shifting the blame to the other party when the complainant tried to resolve the issue. During this time, both builders separately also tried to threaten him to let go of the matter, and he told the police.The complaint named Jayesh Tanna, Deep Tanna, Vinod Tanna from Sai Group. From Wadhwa, he named Naveen Makhija, Manojar Chhabria and Sanjay Chhabria as the accused.
The Hegdes bought a 105 square meter flat on the ninth floor of the project. After making the payment, he was also given an allotment letter and shown all the documents related to the project. The building was supposed to be completed in 2015 but the construction work kept getting delayed for several years.“After the project was finally completed in December 2022, we wanted to go see the finished flat. When we told the builders’ salesperson who was in touch with us about the same, we were informed that the flat we thought was ours had been sold to a person called Mikhil Inani,” the complainant said in his statement to the police. Hegde added that even the registrar office in Khar showed Inani to be the owner of the said flat, who had registered it in August 2021. Shocked, Hegde went to the builders to discuss the issue several times. “At first, they said there was some confusion due to multiple builders being associated with the project. Then, they started shifting the blame on each other. Finally, they acknowledged that the flat had been sold to another buyer. They also said I could do nothing about it so I should just forget the whole episode and the money paid for the flat. They also manhandled me to get me out of their office,” he said in his statement.An official from DN Nagar police said all the accused have been booked for cheating and assault as well as under the relevant sections of Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act.