Thursday, May 15, 2008

Nusli Wadia sues Gopal Raheja for ‘breaching deal’

Something has seriously gone wrong with this deal now that Mr Wadia is sueing the Rahejas. The Raheja's on their part have encroached on mangrove plantations and conducted massive landfills on the swamp adjoining to Mr Wadia's trust. Some of the complexes there were supposed to be sold to middle and low income groups as per the government statutes. 1 bed-room flats were constructed but these flats were never sold individually but they were sold as jodi-flats to different members of the family. The builders gained IT sops due to the nature of the scheme. Mr Wadia is now asking for his pound of flesh since prices have quintupled over the last 5 years.

MUMBAI: Industrialist Nusli Wadia has dragged builder baron Gopal Raheja to court for alleged fraud and breach of agreement regarding the development of over 400 acres of prime land belonging to the estate of late Eduljee Framroze Dinshaw at Malad (west).

Wadia terminated the agreements with Raheja and his 49 companies on May 12. The development agreements were entered into on January 2, 1995, and April 12, 1995 between Wadia, as the sole administrator of the Dinshaw estate, and Raheja.

Wadia has withdrawn all authority given to Raheja including the powers of attorney given Raheja’s children, Sandeep and Sonali, to deal with the various units, flats and other premises built on the contract land.

In a suit filed in the Bombay high court, Wadia has called upon the Rahejas to raze all construction on the 400 acres of prime land at Malad including three buildings at Palm Springs Centre and four at Unique Commercial Centre.

In the interim, Wadia has sought the appointment of a receiver and that the Rahejas be restrained from carrying out further construction and creation of third party rights on the contract land.

In February, Wadia had filed a suit against Gopal Raheja’s brothers Chandru L Raheja and Suresh L Raheja and their sons. He asked the court to stop the Rahejas from carrying on construction on 200 acres of prime land in Malad (west) belonging to the EFD estate and sought demolition of eight of their commercial towers including the Inorbit Mall, Hypercity Mall, Infinity Towers, IV Dimension, Spectrum Towers, Magnum Tower, Intelnet, Prism Paradigm and Athena, all located off Malad Link Road.

Wadia alleged that Chandru and others had “fraudulently” sold or leased properties constructed on the contract land to their “own sister concerns and shell companies created for the purpose” instead of genuine third parties. Wadia demanded damages worth Rs 350 crore from the Raheja brothers.

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