News: 'Colluded with builder', SBI officials booked in Ghaziabad-05-03-2022
The housing project — initially publicised in the name of Red Apple Residency — was launched in 2012, but it has still not seen the light of the day.
GHAZIABAD: Police have booked officials of the State Bank of India (SBI) in connection with the Rs 100-crore fraud pulled off by a Ghaziabad developer and his 10 family members.
So far, two FIRs have been registered in the case — one against the developer and his family members for allegedly selling the same flats in their Raj Nagar Extension-based housing project to multiple buyers and another against unnamed SBI officials for allegedly sanctioning home loans to those who had invested there. Rajkumar, the developer, and his four family members who had been living in Delhi under assumed names, were arrested by the Ghaziabad police on March 1. The housing project — initially publicised in the name of Red Apple Residency — was launched in 2012, but it has still not seen the light of the day. The two FIRs were registered on complaints from a number of victims. Chandra Prakash Goel, one of the complainants, said that he had booked a flat in the project in 2012 by paying around Rs 3 lakh, 10% of the price. “We were promised delivery by 2015. And a year later, the builder asked me to pay the remaining money so that he could start the construction work at the earliest.”
“Withour wasting any time, I soon applied for a loan of Rs 21.40 lakh from SBI through the developer’s staff. My loan amount was sanctioned in no time and was transferred to the builder’s account by the bank. I was intimated later. I paid EMI for the loan for three years before moving the UPRera,” he told the cops.
Bhaskar Bhatt, another complainant, said that he booked a 2BHK flat in the project in 2012. “After the builder failed to give us possession of the flat on the promised date, he asked me to pay the remaining amount to start construction. Through the developer’s men, I had applied for a loan of Rs 20 lakh from SBI.”
In the same way, the home loan was sanctioned and the money transferred to the developer’s account without intimation to the applicant. “Later I came to know that the builder had sold my flat to another person who also got a home loan,” Bhatt said. The two FIRs have been against the developer and SBI officials under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 406 (criminal breach of trust). “We will soon summon loan department officials of SBI for questioning,” Nipurn Aggarwal, SP (City-1), said. When contacted, a SBI official based in Ghaziabad said that “we will give full support to the police in the investigation”. “However, we are yet to get any information on the fraud from the police.”
