Director of Mumbai's Kalpavruksha Realty arrested for 'selling' booked flats to third parties

A 65-year-old builder who allegedly invited several investors to book flats in his under-construction project and subsequently sold the units to others was arrested by Mumbai police’s economic offences wing (EOW) on Tuesday. Nepean Sea Road resident Prakash Mehta, a director in Kalpavruksha Realty, is the first person to be arrested in the alleged Rs 18.9 crore cheating case. The EOW’s housing unit arrested Mehta under Indian Penal Code sections for criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy, as well as Maharashtra Ownership Flats (Regulation of the Promotion of Construction, Sale, Management and Transfer) Act, 1963, popularly known as MOFA. Complainant RajenCheda, director in a private company, lodged a complaint that he along with his uncle, a friend and two other individuals had booked six 4BHK flats, measuring a carpet area of 182 square metre each, for around Rs 3 crore, in the under-construction Prabhadevi project. In 2005, Mehta had started a project at Prabhadevi to build a 21-storey tower. The current per square foot rate in the upmarket locality is between Rs 30,000 and 35,000. Cheda, his friend Ramesh Damani and uncle Pravin Cheda had all visited the site and accordingly decided to book flats in the project.   “Each one of them was to pay a sum of Rs 3 crore for 182 square metre on completion. The builder had promised to complete the project and hand over possession of the flats in 2009 but it is 2018 now and the project is still incomplete,” said an officer. When the complainant went to Mehta’s office some time ago to ask about the progress of the construction, he was told that the project had got delayed due to aviation policies. The complainant went to the site to find that the construction had almost stopped. Thereafter, all the 25 investors in the project held a joint meeting where they learnt that the flats booked by the complainant and others were allegedly sold to third parties by Mehta and his family members. All the investors then decided to lodge a cheating complaint against Mehta’s construction firm, said the police, who have also accused the other director of the realty firm, who is Mehta’s close family member, in the case.