Delhi court to consider taking cognisance of chargesheet today

New Delhi: A Delhi court is likely to decide on Tuesday whether to take cognisance of the chargesheet filed against R K Arora, the chairman and promoter of real estate group Supertech, in a money laundering case.

Special Judge Devender Kumar Jangala reserved the order on Monday, after the conclusion of arguments advanced by the counsel appearing for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as well as the accused.

The ED had on August 24 filed the charge sheet against Arora, Supertech Group, and eight others in the money laundering case. They have been accused of defrauding at least 670 homebuyers of Rs 164 crore.

The nearly 100-page prosecution complaint, ED’s equivalent of a chargesheet, claimed there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the accused.

Arora was arrested on June 27 under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after three rounds of questioning.

The money-laundering case against the Supertech Group, its directors and promoters stems from a clutch of FIRs registered by police in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

ED’s Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta and advocate Mohd Faizan Khan had told the court that the anti-money laundering agency was probing the matter related to 26 FIRs registered by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh police against Supertech Limited and its group companies for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and forgery.

According to the ED charge sheet, the company and its directors hatched a “criminal conspiracy” to cheat people by collecting funds from prospective homebuyers as advance against flats booked in their real estate projects.

The company allegedly did not adhere to the agreed obligation of providing possession of the flats on time and “defrauded” the general public, the agency said, adding the funds were collected by Supertech and other group companies. The company also took project-specific term loans from banks and financial institutions for the purpose of construction of housing projects, the ED said.

However, these funds were “misappropriated and diverted” for buying land in the name of other group companies which were pledged as collateral to borrow funds from banks and financial institutions, it added.