Cases & Controversies

The year had a number of high-profile cases and controversies involving developers hitting the headlines. While the spotlight remained on court rulings involving groups like Jaypee, Unitech, Amrapali etc, here are some other controversies that remained in news: 

NBFC shockwaves

Coming as it did almost at the end of the year, the NBFC crisis put an entirely new spin to India’s 'cautiously optimistic outlook' and as of now, it shows no signs of relenting. The Indian real estate sector enters 2019 with a gun to its head. Strong intervention from the Government and RBI is definitely called for.

PACL Ponzi Scheme: 472 cr assets attached

The Enforcement Directorate attached the assets worth Rs 472 crore in connection with money laundering probe in the PACL Ponzi scam case. ED had earlier registered a criminal case against the firm in 2015 based on a CBI FIR against the directors and officials of the group.

SRS Group CMD arrested

Anil Jindal, chairman of SRS Group with its interests in real estate, finance, hospitality and retail was arrested for cheating, fraud and duping investors of crores of rupees. The police slapped 22 cases of cheating and fraud against Jindal and other promoters of the company in Faridabad for not delivering promised flats. He had taken loans from many banks and declared some of his projects as non-performing assets.

NHB MD quits for ‘favouring’ a few HFCs

With  The managing director of National Housing Bank (NHB) had to resign from his post following allegations of favouring housing finance companies. A vigilance inquiry was ordered against him in the wake of allegations that unethical practices were adopted by the housing regulator for sanctioning refinance facility to various housing  finance companies.

Anti-profiteering probe against Lodha Group

The Directorate General of Anti-Profiteering (DGAP) started a probe against Lodha group for alleged profiteering. The builder was investigated for allegedly not passing on the benefits of the input tax credit (ITC) to the buyers of its luxury residential project Eternis in Mumbai. Incidentally this year Lodha Group also madesavoury headlines as Mangal Prabhat Lodha replaced DLF’s KP Singh as the richest real estate tycoon in India.

Former YEIDA Chairman in land scam

A departmental inquiry by the Yamuna Expressway & Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) found its former chairman PC Gupta directly involved in a Rs 126 crore YEIDA land scam. Uttar Pradesh government had recommended a CBI probe in a matter related to the purchase of land in Mathura for Yamuna Expressway. In the inquiry, it  was found that through a nexus of other officers and employees, Gupta  purchased land at a cost of over Rs 85 crore with the help of 19 companies and later sold at a higher cost to the Authority, causing a loss of Rs 126 crore to  YEIDA. Later this year, director of an  infrastructure company was also arrested in connection with this scam.

Punjab CM gets clean chit in land scam

Punjab Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh and 17 others were acquitted by a Mohali court of corruption and related charges in a decade-long case relating to transfer of Amritsar Improvement Trust  land to a private developer. The case  related to transfer of about 32 acres of prime land of the Trust to a private developer, Veer Colonizers, was registered after SAD-BJP government came to power in 2007.

— Inputs by Vinod Behl