Panchkula DM issues notice to public not to buy, sell flat in Ess Vee Apartments
The notice put up reads, “We inform the residents of the district that the Samar Estate properties owes Rs 38.73 crore plus 12 per cent interest to date to the government.
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In orders passed on March 21, a local district court of Additional Civil Judge, Iram Hasan, has also permitted an auction of attached properties of the accused directors of Samar Estates Private Limited Ess Vee Apartments. (Representational)The Panchkula District Magistrate (DM) ordered the installation of notices across the land owned by Samar Estate Private Limited, warning people to not buy plots or flats in Ess Vee Apartments as the company owes several crores to the government of Haryana.
The notice put up reads, “We inform the residents of the district that the Samar Estate properties owes Rs 38.73 crore plus 12 per cent interest to date to the government. They have not paid this pending amount despite several notices issued. The accused’s properties have also been attached. Selling or buying properties inside is a punishable offence.”
In orders passed on March 21, a local district court of Additional Civil Judge, Iram Hasan, has also permitted an auction of attached properties of the accused directors of Samar Estates Private Limited Ess Vee Apartments. The house of the accused, Vinod Bagai, is set to be auctioned in case the remaining dues are not paid before the auction date set for April 22.
“A order has been passed by this court for sale of attached property… The sale will be by public auction and the property will be put up for sale in the lots specified in the schedule… In absence of any order of postponement, the sale will be held by the court auctioneer at the monthly sale. In the event, however, of the debt above specified and of costs of the sale being tendered or paid before the knocking down of any lot, the sale will be stopped,” the order read.
Case history
It has been a decade and a half since over 400 people had invested their money into the ‘Ess Vee Apartments’ project to be developed in sector 20 of Panchkula. The project had offered the investors- mostly senior citizens and retired officials- a luxuriously developed society with spacious 3bhk homes. More than 400 people have allegedly been defrauded of more than 300 crores in the matter. Allegations of fraud by misappropriating and diverting the funds collected from all the allottees have also been levelled against the accused, Vinod Bagai. All FIRs state that the victims had been lured by several advertisements made by accused Vinod Bagai and two others to invest in a three BHK at a cost of Rs 67.7 lakh at Project Ess Vee apartments.
The company named ‘Samar Estates’, completed over 11 housing projects between 1998 to 2003 and earned goodwill from the customers. It was in 2005-06 when the three directors launched their new project namely ‘Ess Vee Apartments’ and started booking flats in said project. Bookings were taken between 2005-06 to 2013-14 with assurances that buyers would get possession of flats within three years.
Having waited several years, an association of the aggrieved started filing the FIRs in 2019.
A case running at HRERA Panchkula since 2019 had issued several arrest warrants but no action had been taken against the accused till March 2021. It was on March 26 this year, that after the intervention of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the prime accused Vinod Bagai was arrested and bailed on medical grounds in the Samar estate fraud case. The accused’s wife Sunita Bagai and relative Virender Bagai had been arrested on February 19 and sent to judicial custody.
However, despite the arrests of the accused after several year-long fights by the senior citizens, the aggrieved are yet to get any relief in the matter.
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