News: Court asks CBI to file report in Orris India vs Godrej Properties case-13-03-2023
A special CBI court has asked the premier investigation agency to file a status report on a dispute between Godrej Properties Ltd and Orris India Private Limited (OIPL) in connection with their Gurgaon-based Air residential project
OIPL has accused Godrej Properties of siphoning off funds from the project to other companies, a claim the latter denies and claims “an attempt to malign our image”.
In its petition, Orris had prayed for directions to be issued to the CBI for further investigation in the case against Godrej Properties as well as its management who allegedly defrauded the complainant and siphoned off the money falling to the share of the complainant.
While hearing the case, CBI special judge Sameer Bajpai last week directed the investigating agency to file a status report in the case by April 25. The court has appointed an investigation officer to probe the allegations and submit the report for further action.
Deepak Khemchandani, a representative of OIPL, who had filed the petition, claimed that in 2016, Orris was developing a group housing colony on 10 acres of land in Sector 85. Orris Infrastructure and Godrej Properties entered into an agreement in 2017 for project development where the profit ratio was decided at 62.5% and 37.5%, respectively
“As per the business plan, Godrej Properties projected a cash flow of approximately Rs 200 crore in favour of OIPL. Godrej Properties was granted irrevocable and exclusive development rights, rights in allotting/selling units, receiving consideration from allottees and maintaining accounts in place of revenue and expenses,” the petitioner said.
In the petition, OIPL further alleged that in order to escape sharing of profit with OIPL to the tune of Rs 200 crore(further reduced to Rs 50 Crore), funds have been diverted to another company.
OIPL had earlier filed a complaint with the economic offences wing (EOW) of Gurgaon police against Godrej Properties, accusing it of cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. In December last year, the court of an additional district judge ordered to freeze 16 bank accounts of the residential housing project in the wake of a plea by OIPL.
OIPL spokesperson said that in the petition, the company had prayed before the court for issuing appropriate directions to the CBI for carrying out fair and impartial investigation in the matter.
Spokesperson of Godrej Properties said they are being falsely and intentionally implicated in an unrelated criminal dispute by Orris Infrastructure Private Limited. “This we believe is with an intention to malign our reputation. As a reputed developer, we are confident of our compliance and have already filed criminal action against Orris Infrastructure Private Limited within the legal framework for making such frivolous allegations against us. With respect to the Project in context, we are at advanced stages of project completion as per schedule and as a logical next step, we will be preparing to file for the Occupancy Certificate. As of now, we have not received any notice from the Court. Since the matter is sub-judice, we will not be able to comment any further,” he said.
