Court finds Vikas OBEROI ‘prima facie’ CHEATER, trips police bid to quash FIR

Akela

THE Metropolitan Magistrates’ Court in Andheri agreed that Vikas Oberoi alias Vicky, director of Oberoi Realty, is a cheater builder. The court also disagreed with the C-summary report filed by Meghwadi police station and ordered the criminal case to be continued.

On February 10, 2017, Metropolitan Magistrate Amitabh Panchbhai found sufficient grounds to proceed with the case against Vikas Oberoi for cheating flat buyers. The magistrate ordered that an FIR lodged in the case would not be closed and issued process. Therefore, summons will be issued now and the next date for the matter is April 18, 2017.

Vikas Oberoi has developed Oberoi Splendor, a luxury project on Jogeshwari-Vikroli Link Road (JVLR) with six wings and 1,296 flats. In 2013, flat owners found that Oberoi had cheated each one of them of 94 sq feet built-up area and 40 sq feet carpet area, collectively cheating them of Rs 120 crore. The flat owners also complained of fraud and forgery in registration of the society and misappropriation of funds. Flat owners had further complained that in place of the promised camping site and other amenities, OBEROI constructed one more building called GRANDE. Other major violations, such as flouting of Development Plan, not constructing as per plan and FSI fraud, were also found when approved plans were obtained under the RTI Act.

Flat owners formed the Oberoi Splendor Flat Owners Association (OSFOA). Mohit Bhardwaj, the complainant, is one of its directors. OSFOA approached the Meghwadi police station to register an FIR but the police refused. OSFOA then knocked on the court’s door and upon court order, on September 3, 2013, the Meghwadi police station registered an FIR (MECR) against Vikas Oberoi, sales manager Rochelle Chatterjee, Arun Kotian, Saumil Daru and the construction company M/S Oberoi Realty Ltd under sections 341, 406, 420, 465, 468, 471, 506 (II) r/w sections 107, 109 and 120(B) of the IPC, Section 13 of the MOF Act and section 52 of the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning (MRTP) Act.

For some reason, the Meghwadi police station officials were not ready to DIGEST the fact that Vikas Oberoi is ‘Builder 420’. Three years after registration of FIR, the police filed a C-summary in the matter and closed the file.

Mohit Bhardwaj challenged the C-summary report, on which the magistrate observed that the Meghwadi police favoured Vikas Oberoi and did not even record the builder’s statement.

“The learned magistrate took cognizance of the matter being satisfied that ingredients of section 420 (cheating) of the IPC were present and issued orders for proceeding with the matter, strongly objecting to the lackadaisical attitude of police ignoring vital documentary evidence and statement of witnesses, ”said Mohit Bhardwaj.

“Not only this, to pass of the illegal building GRANDE as legitimate, Vikas Oberoi forged papers to register a society called Splendor Complex CHS Ltd by fraud and has recently even appointed his tools to impose this illegal society on flat owners to cover his fraud of over 200 crores of money collected from the owners, all this because flat owners get only a cold shoulder from every authority like registrar, BMC, police, etc, and delay is used as a cloak by the builder to feign innocence,” said Sudhir Agarwal, a flat owner.