Director Brothers of Unitech arrested

New Delhi : Real estate company Unitech's Managing Directors Sanjay Chandra and brother Ajay Chandra were arrested on Saturday by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police. A court here sent them to two-day police custody.

The Chandra brothers were booked for cheating buyers, as Unitech first failed to complete a real estate project in Gurugram's Sector 70 on time and also did not refund the money along with interest to buyers.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Ashu Garg sent them to police custody as the police told the court that their custody was required to ascertain the money trail and to recover the related documents.

"An EOW team went to Gurugram on Friday night and raided the residence of Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra. The team arrested them for laundering around Rs 35 crore," said Delhi Police spokesperson Madhur Verma.

Verma added that there were 91 complaints against them in connection with the Gurugram project, for which valid permission from the competent authority was not taken.

The project was to be completed by 2014.

The accused were booked on charges relating to criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy.

The Delhi Police on Friday told the court that Unitech company had allegedly collected Rs 363 crore from 557 customers for the Anthea Floors residential project.

It also alleged that their licence was not approved by the competent authority for building a township.

The project was started in 2011 without getting environment clearance. Unitech obtained environment clearance in September 2013.

Even though it did not have environment clearance, the accused continued booking the flats without giving the real picture to investors and thus misrepresented facts to the investors, Public Prosecutor Anil Paswan told the court.

He sought three days' police custody of the accused to ascertain the expenditures on the projects and the money trail.

The court observed that the interrogation was required to recover the money and said: "Apparently, a large number of investors are involved and a huge sum of money is in question."

"Such investors had handed over their hard earned money to the accused persons... They are still in the dark about where their money has gone and how it can be ever recovered," the court said.

"It is also clear that till now, the cheated/ misappropriated amount has neither been recovered nor its trail could be established so as to secure the interests of investors."

The court further said: "In my considered view, police custody of the accused persons is extremely necessary to recover the relevant documents and information either from the accused persons or at their instance."

"Again, the money trail has to be ascertained and the accused persons would be required to disclose the mode, manner and destinations where the money was appropriated," the court said in its order.

In 2015 also, the court had issued a non-bailable warrant against them in a misappropriation of funds case, though it was cancelled later.

Sanjay Chandra is also facing trial in the 2G spectrum allocation case and currently he is out on bail in that matter.