HDIL company made Rs 1,100 crore from Mhada devpt rights sale

MUMBAI: Guruashish Construction, a subsidiary firm of HDIL, against whom city police’s economic offences wing registered an FIR earlier this month, earned around Rs 1,100 crore by selling the development rights of Mhada’s Patra Chawl property at Goregaon (West) to seven builders.
Guruashish Constructions, which signed an agreement with Mhada and Patra Chawl residents to redevelop the 10-acre land in 2008, has virtually abandoned the project.A public sector bank dragged the builder before National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for insolvency after it failed to repay a loan. Guruashish told TOI the matter is pending before NCLT. “It is under NCLT moratorium, hence adequate orders shall be sought from the tribunal,” it said.
The seven builders include Ekta Everglade Homes, Kalpataru Group (Kiyana Ventures), KBJ Developers, RNA NG Infra, First Infra, Bhoomi Shashwat Estate and Pinky Skyscrapers. A legal opinion given by senior advocate S U Kamdar said HDIL, in connivance with Guruashish Construction, “removed huge amount of profits under the pretext of consultancy charges from Guruashish”. This amount, it added, was received from various developers by Guruashish in “collusion and in connivance with its parent company, HDIL”.
According to the agreement with Mhada, Guruashish was to rehouse the 672 tenants of Patra Chawl and hand over 1.1 million square metres of built-up area to the housing authority free of charge. The builder was entitled to develop the remaining portion to build towers and sell them to recover its investment and make profits. Mhada cancelled its agreement with Guruashish recently though, after the builder left the tenants in the lurch, stopped their rents for alternate accommodation and failed to hand over Mhada’s share of property.
TOI has learnt that Guruashish pocketed Rs 302 crore from Ekta, Rs 448 crore from Kalpataru, Rs 80 crore each from RNA and KBJ Developers, Rs 72 crore from Bhoomi, Rs 33 crore from First Infra and Rs 18 crore from Pinky Skyscrapers. “Guruashish sold roughly 2 lakh sq m of FSI to these builders,” said one of the developers.
These seven developers have now gone to court after Mhada served a terminated agreement to Guruashish and said it would take over the project. The builders filed different suits before the Bombay high court, restraining Mhada from stopping their ongoing construction. Last week, Justice S J Kathawalla restrained Mhada from taking coercive action against these builders.
Kalpataru has built four towers with 697 apartments, of which 410 are sold. Ekta has built three towers with 477 apartments of which 250 are booked.
Last week, the high court directed Guruashish’s parent company, HDIL and its directors, including Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan, to disclose on oath all their assets, movable and immovable, encumbered and unencumbered. “The disclosure affidavit shall include all the bank accounts held in the name of HDIL as well as Mr Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan since 2011. The bank statements, income-tax returns filed by HDIL and Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan from year 2011 shall also be annexed to affidavits,” said the court.
Meanwhile, several hundred flat buyers of HDIL’s Meadows project in Patra Chawl have been left in the lurch. The builder has sold 465 flats and collected Rs 131 crore, but the project is far from ready.