Builder duo booked for ₹78 cr fraud

Police in Khar book father-son builder duo for ₹78 crore fraud, diverting funds, violating RERA rules, and failing to deliver flats on time.

Mumbai: Police in Khar have booked a father-son builder duo for allegedly cheating flat buyers and banks to the tune of ₹78 crore. Kanhaiyalal Mordani and Kumar Mordani, owners of the firm Paramveer Developers, diverted money borrowed from banks and paid by buyers for one project to another one, violating several rules of the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), the authority said in a complaint to the police. They also failed to hand over flats to buyers within the deadline, the complainant noted.

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The fraud came to light when High Street, a project by Paramveer Developers, was audited by independent consultants engaged by MahaRERA. Officials said they were compelled to rope in the services of the auditors as the developer neither responded to multiple notices nor corrected its course of action.

“The developers took crores of rupees both from buyers and two banks. The money taken from the customers was not parked in their RERA account,” MahaRERA said in its complaint. Over ₹11 crore out of the ₹19 crore paid by 34 customers and ₹185 crore out of the ₹202 crore taken as bank loans was forwarded to the accounts of other firms related to the company, it added.

Auditors also found several lacunae in the account books of the company, including in taxes, customer ledgers and sales ledgers. It had not submitted any progress reports to MahaRERA over the years. Moreover, it was constructing a thirteen-floor building despite having permission for a six-storied one; the project was also way past the deadline of December 2022, but was only 30% complete.

Based on the complaint, police booked the accused under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by merchant) and 420 (cheating and dishonesty) of the Indian Penal Code.