Patna: In another crackdown on dubious builder, the Patna high court has directed the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of the state government to probe the allegations of fraud against Sri Anuanand Construction, a real estate firm engaged in building of a set of apartments at Sai Enclave locality of Mustafapur in Khagaul in Patna’s outskirts.
Sri Anuanand Construction had launched construction activities on the housing project in 2013 with plans to build around 750 flats in 14 blocks. Many homebuyers had done purchase agreement with the company and some of them had paid up to 80% of the flat cost.
The Patna high court, while hearing the bunch of petitions filed by the aggrieved flat buyers in the housing project, also directed the state Director General of Police (DGP) to transfer all cases lodged in various police station areas against the builder by the prospective flat owners. The DGP has been directed to file an affidavit after transferring all the cases to the EOU. Most of the cases are lodged with Buddha Colony police station, where the builder had its office.
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In the petition filed by as many as 42 prospective flat owners in the court, it was alleged that Sri Anuanand Construction had devoured over ₹100 crore, which they had deposited at the time of booking. “After years of wait, builder neither give possession of flats nor did it return advance to the prospective flat owners,” claimed an advocate representing the aggrieved home buyers.
The court was informed that 80% work on four blocks of apartment has been done, while the rest have 40-60% construction. It is also said that Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), Bihar, approved the building plans in 2018.
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Waking up to the complaints lodged by the prospective buyers, the RERA had in 2021 asked the construction company to revalidate the building plan as per the law. Scrutiny of the documents furnished by the builder had raised the apprehension that the construction firm had less than required area of land for building the apartment. Accordingly in 2023, the RERA has asked for the list of allottees from the construction company, which had declined to adhere to the instruction.
Let down by the dubious deeds of the builder, those who booked flats in the project had begun filing the first information report (FIR) against Sri Anuanand Construction in various police stations, including Buddha Colony police station. The complaints had also sent the copies of the FIRs to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for action. But nothing happened further.
ED raided Agrani Homes Pvt Ltd premises for fraud
In April last year, the ED had raided two locations of a prominent Patna builder against which the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (REAT), Bihar, passed an order “for trapping prospective home buyers and diverting money collected from allottees of a particular project for acquiring other landed property or fresh project.”
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Raids were carried out by the central agency at the Kankarbagh and Danapur locations of Agrani Homes Pvt Ltd. REAT had earlier dismissed the appeal of Agrani Homes Pvt Ltd against the order of the RERA, Bihar, Patna.
The raids were conducted in view of the complaints filed for seeking possession of the flats by the buyers who had paid in advance to Agrani Homes Pvt Ltd. The project was to be completed with possession to be given to the allottees as per the agreement in December 2015, however, even after eight years since its commencement, the project still remains unfinished. The promoter never made any complaint to the authority regarding non-payment by allottees.
