Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Crime Branch today arrested Santosh Kumar Rath, Additional Director of M/s Mishra Creations Pvt. Ltd., a real estate company, for allegedly cheating flat buyers of Rs 15 crore.
He has been apprehended under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471, 120-B of the IPC and Section 6 of the OPID Act.
According to official sources, the case was registered on the basis of a written allegation of Swadesh Ray Chaudhury of Rasulgarh, Bhubaneswar regarding the cheating to him and as well as other investors in the name of giving flats in the project ‘UTOPIA’ at Chandaka of M/s Mishra Creations Pvt. Ltd. He had booked a flat in the project during the year 2016 and advanced an amount of Rs 16 lakh to the accused MD Jyoti Ranjan Mishra. He had incurred a bank loan to give the advance and also entered into a tripartite agreement with the builder and the bank. The flat was to be handed over within 30 months, but neither the flat was given to him by the real estate company, nor he was refunded the invested amount.
Arrested accused Santosh Kumar Rath was looking after the marketing of UTOPIA project. Later on, he was appointed as the Additional Director of the company. He along with MD Jyoti Ranjan Mishra collected more than Rs 15 crore from over 130 investors from 2016 onwards to provide them flats, sources said.
It was promised by the real estate company to hand over the flats within 30 months of booking. 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 the elapse of 8 years and was giving false assurance to deliver the flat from time to time under different pretexts, sources added.
Earlier, accused Jyoti Ranjan Mishra, MD of M/s Mishra Creations Pvt. Ltd., was arrested in this case and still in judicial custody.
