The Supreme Court has stayed further proceedings in an FIR filed against top brass, including IREO Group Managing Director Lalit Goyal and Oberoi Realty Chairman and Managing Director Vikas Oberoi, under various sections of cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery.
While seeking response from the Haryana police and others, a vacation Bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and Justice Augustine George Masih said: “…we find that the second complaint (against IREO and Oberoi officials) was made without disclosing the fact that the first complaint had been made, albeit in relation to the letter dated September 9, 2022 supposedly addressed by the complainant (one Chandan Singh) itself which was attacked as a forgery. Significantly, the second complaint does not even mention this letter though it was of relevance.”
“The question as to whether the filing of the second complaint would amount to an abuse of process and as to whether the complainant approached the Court with unclean hands requires further examination,” the apex court said, while posting the matter for further hearing on July 29.
Challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s order that upheld registration of an FIR, both IREO, and Oberoi group moved the Supreme Court alleging that Singh, the authorised representative of Advance India Projects (AIPL) did not disclose the first criminal proceeding where he got no relief and a second complaint was filed in a different police station.
“The impugned order not only reflects misappreciation of factual and legal aspects but also a one-sided myopic approach titled towards the complainant,” IREO stated in its appeal filed through counsel Nikhil Jain.
The FIR was filed on the orders of the Chief Judicial Magistrate at the DLF phase 2 police station following a complaint lodged by AIPL, accusing both realty groups of conspiring to defraud allottees who had invested funds since 2013.
For launching a group housing project in Sector 58, Gurugram, IREO had in 2021 entered into a MoU with AIPL for developing the project. As a precondition, the new developer was allegedly supposed to infuse funds and complete the project, but IREO said that AIPL did not make a “single rupee payment”, thus the MoU was terminated in 2022 and a new developer, Oberoi Realty, was roped in.
However, AIPL filed a suit for specific performance against IREO on the grounds that its MoU was still valid and subsisting. Thereafter, AIPL through Singh filed a complaint that the termination letter of September 9, 2022 and the resolution of September 5, 2022 were forged documents. The complaint was dismissed by a trial court.
AIPL through Singh filed second complaint before another Gurugram court seeking registration of an FIR against the officials of IREO and Oberoi group. Its plea was allowed in February and upheld by the HC. On June 7, the police filed a FIR against nine persons including top brass of the two realty firms.
In its complaint, AIPL had claimed that IREO Group embezzled and siphoned off around Rs 1,777 crore and about Rs 1,376 crore was recovered as advances from the allottees. It also alleged that IREO collected Rs 400 crore from about 70 allottees in the Grand Hyatt Residency Project in Sector 58 as part of the embezzlement scheme.
