SRA scam involving Baba Siddique: ED attaches 33 flats of Pyramid Developers

The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) was the land owning authority in this case and Siddique was the chairman of the Mumbai board of MHADA between 2000-2004. Siddique had denied allegations against him in this case in the past. The ED investigation has found several violations in construction of the building by Pyramid Developers. The agency said exemptions were granted to the project which were not available to it, FSI granted to the developers exceeded the permissible limit and a no-objection certificate was issued for construction in the area measuring 16,742 square metre, whereas the actual construction was undertaken by showing the plot area as 18,662.70 square metre.

The ED said the developer had constructed 81 flats in the building, divided equally between Pyramid Developers and Satra Buildcon Pvt. Ltd. The average sale value of each flat is about 14 crore. In March 2014, Bandra police had registered a case against Siddique, Qureshi and 150 others for alleged irregularities in allotment of houses in the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) project. The police action was initiated after a metropolitan magistrate’s court ordered a probe into the case based on a complaint filed by a resident, Abdul Salaam, in 2012.

In his complaint, Salaam alleged that several slum dwellers forged ration cards to secure more than one room for their
families in the seven SRA buildings developed by Pyramid Developers after the demolition of the slum.