Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Bhubaneswar, on Thursday arrested Santosh Kumar Rath, Additional Director of a real estate company M/s Mishra Creations Pvt Ltd, from Bhubaneswar on charges of cheating people to the tune of more than Rs 15 crore.
A case has been registered at the Bhubaneswar EOW police station under Sections 406/420/467/468/471/120-B IPC r/w Section 6 of the OPID Act, 2011. The arrested will be produced before the designated court in Cuttack under the OPID Act.
The case was registered on the basis of the written complaint by Swadesh Ray Chaudhury of Rasulgarh, Bhubaneswar, alleging that the accused cheated him and as well as other investors on the pretext of giving them flats in the project ‘UTOPIA’ at Chandaka. Ray Chaudhury booked a flat in the ‘UTOPIA’ project in 2016 and paid an advance amount of Rs 16 lakh to the firm’s managing director Jyoti Ranjan Mishra. He has incurred a bank loan to give the advance and has also entered into a tripartite agreement with the builder and the bank.
The flat was to be handed over to Ray Chaudhury within 30 months of the payment, but he neither received the keys of the flat nor was he refunded the invested amount.
The arrested accused Santosh Kumar Rath was looking after the marketing of the UTOPIA project situated at Chandaka. Later on, Rath was appointed the Additional Director of the company. He along with MD Jyoti Ranjan Mishra has collected more than Rs.15 crore from more than 130 investors since 2016 to provide them with flats in the project.
The real estate firm promised to hand over the flats within 30 months of booking. The company was constructing 10 blocks (A-J) in the project at Chandaka. The investors were made to enter into a tripartite agreement for financing with the banks. After taking almost 95% of the total cost of the flats, the real estate company did not hand over any flat to the investors even after eight years and was giving false assurances to deliver the flat from time to time under different pretexts.
It was also found that the arrested accused Santosh Kumar Rath along with MD Jyoti Ranjan Mishra has done multiple transactions in respect of a good number of flats booked earlier in the name of different investors. Earlier, accused Jyoti Ranjan Mishra was arrested in the same case.
Further investigation into the case is underway.
