Senior Advocate Shirish Gupte, representing the promoters, argued that the complainant had failed to adhere to principles established by the Supreme Court in several landmark judgments.
The Bombay High Court granted a stay on the investigation into the FIR filed against the promoters of Kalpataru Developers for allegedly defrauding homebuyers for their Goregaon project.
The interim stay order, issued by the Bombay High Court on June 28, noted that the lower court had not adequately considered the complexity of the law when directing the lodging of the FIR.
Senior Advocate Shirish Gupte, representing the promoters, argued that the complainant had failed to adhere to principles established by the Supreme Court in several landmark judgments.
Gupte emphasised that these precedents outline the proper procedure for filing such complaints, which was not followed in this case.
He added that intricacies of law have not been properly considered by the trial court while passing impugned order.
“In view thereof, ad-interim relief is granted,” a division bench of Justices Ajey S Gadkari and Neela K Gokhale noted in its order and posted further hearing to July 12.
The Mumbai Police had booked the promoters of Kiyana Ventures LLP, a group firm of Kalpataru Group, and developers Parag Munot, Mofatraj Munot, Anuj Munot, Ismail Kanga, project incharge Devesh Bhatt, project director Narendra Lodha, and Omprakash Mehta in connection with an alleged fraud worth Rs 17 crore related to a housing project called Kalpataru Radiance in Goregaon West.
The FIR was filed on June 6 by the Goregaon police following the directives of the Special Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (MPID) Act court under the provisions of Section 156(3) of the CrPC. Several homebuyers claimed that they have not received possession of their flats even after a decade.
In April 2013, the complainant Ishwarlal Vanjara, and his wife visited the site of Kalpataru Radiance, where a representative informed them that the project would be completed by 2017.
After a year, Vanjara decided to buy a 2 BHK flat for Rs 2.20 crore and paid a booking amount of Rs 4.94 lakh in April 2014. Over time, he paid a total of Rs 2.09 crore to the developer through his housing loan and bank account.
A sale agreement was signed in July 2015, and the registration formalities were completed the same day. Vanjara paid Rs 2.2 crore for the flat, its registration, and the stamp duty but the developer allegedly failed to deliver the flat by June 2017 as promised.
Following this, Vanjara and five other flat buyers approached the Special Court designated under MPID Act.