News: Appu Ghar’s directors booked for fraud, FIRs filed after court order-05-09-2021
Gurgaon: Police have filed two cases against Appu Ghar, the controversial Gurgaon amusement park project, and its directors for cheating and fraud.
Nearly 1,500 people had invested over Rs 1,300 crore in the project, which was launched in 2012 with a three-year deadline. The investors, however, allege that the developer has reduced the size of shops and increased its cost over the years while not paying them the assured returns. They have also accused the developer of making illegal agreements.
The FIRs were, in fact, filed on the directions of a local court, after two of the investors sought legal recourse to recover their money.
One of the complainants, Sanjiv Bhatia alleged they were lured through advertisements by International Recreation & Amusement Limited (IRAL), the holding company of the Appu Ghar brand, that it was allotted 42 acres of land (25 acres in Sector 29 and 17 acres in Sector 52A) for the development of the theme park by HUDA (now HSVP).
“However, we came to know from an RTI response in February 2021 that IRAL did not bid for the land at all. Another company belonging to the promoters, International Amusement Ltd (IAL), was allotted the land, while IRAL was executing the lease agreement with the investors,” claimed Bhatia, a resident of resident of Central Park, who booked two units of 500 sq ft commercial space for Rs 62.50 lakh per unit in 2014.
According to Bhatia, the project failed to take off till 2017 and another agreement was made in which the size of each unit was reduced to 400 sq ft, the location changed and the price rose to Rs 1 crore.
“They had promised us an assured rental of Rs 1 lakh per month but that never came,” he alleged.
Another complainant, Vishal, said, “IRAL started sub-leasing of commercial retail shops while it had no rights to execute any sub-lease. All such deeds executed were illegal as the IRAL was formed six months after the allotment of land was made to IAL.”
According to a forensic report by the Haryana government, dated March 2018, the holding company and its directors siphoned off around Rs 900 crore that they had collected from 1,500 investors.
On the direction of the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) of Gurgaon, two cases were registered against IRAL and 16 others, including the directors and senior management of the company, under sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 467 (forgery), 468 (fording document), 471 (using forged document), 34 (common intention) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC at the Sector 29 police station on Friday.
Rakesh Babbar, director of IRAL, said, “There is no point in registering such cases as the matter is being heard by NCLT. We have not taken any bank loan on this project.”
