Major Multi-Crore Real Estate Scams in India

Bangalore: The real estate segment got scams too. Corruption has become an unresolved issue in India that has been spread throughout the country like a deadly plague hindering the country’s growth. We have come across many corruption cases that made headlines and caught our attention because of its multi-crore involvement. Coalgate scam is the most recent followed by 2G scams, Commonwealth games scam and many more. While Adarsh Housing Society Scam is known to be one of the biggest scams in real estate, below are few of India’s land scams.

Adarsh Housing Society scam

Adarsh Housing Society Scam is the biggest housing scams of Mumbai, the financial capital of India. It is one of the multi-crore housing scam in India. This housing scam started way back in the year 2002 when a request for the construction of housing complex was put forward to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The request was to allot land for housing complex for “the welfare of serving and retired personnel of the Defence Services," in the city of Mumbai.  Surprisingly, over the period of ten years, top politicians, bureaucrats and military officials have come under the scanner for violating several norms including land-use rules and environmental laws and misusing the houses originally built for martyrs' widows and Kargil heroes. In fact, these aforementioned figures have pounced on flats in this property at low prices, which is located in South Mumbai’s Colaba area in prime defence land.

"The episode of Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society reveals how a group of select officials, placed in key posts, could subvert rules and regulations in order to grab prime government land- a public property- for personal benefit,” according to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India to the President of India in 2011.

 

Noida land scam

Noida land scam is another multi-crore real estate fraud took place in India. In this scam, top scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have transferred the government land worth around 70 crore to the name of a private group to develop society flats by spending just a small part of its actual market value.

Originally Noida land scam started way back in March 1992 when the tract of government land was allotted to develop staff quarters for ICMR affiliated ICPO (Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology) at sector 39. The ICPO spend around 2 crore to get possession of the land but failed to develop the quarters till March 2006, due to which the penalty amounted to almost 2.28 crore. And from this stage, it is to be believed that officials started using the plot of land for different purpose.  

The plot of land that came under scanner spans over 2.5 acres which is around 9,712.62 square meters and the society building is located on Noida’s prime location where the sector 32 Metro station and Noida City Centre is nearby.

Emaar Properties scam

The alleged scam started back in 2003 when Dubai-based real estate group Emaar Properties merged with the government run Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC). Under the partnership clause, 75 percent of equity granted to Emaar Properties and the rest percentage to the APIIC. The actual plan was to develop an ultra-luxury township including villas, golf course and a hotel on 535 acres of land in Gachibowli. But in 2006, another Dubai-based infrastructure company, MGF got involved in the partnership and due to which the stake of APIIC reduced to 6.5 percent. However, during this time BP Acharya was serving as the Managing Director of APIIC and allowed the revised terms rather than obtaining clearance from government. CBI suspected that the new partnership helped Emaar-MGF to gain excessive benefit of 2500 crore.

Many top-notch figures including politicians and celebrities had came under CBI scanner for buying villas sold at 5000 per square yard, whereas the actual market value was no less than 60,000 per square yard. This had brought huge loss to the government, with NDTV inputs.

Cooperative group housing scheme Scam

In the Rangmahal cooperative group housing scheme (CGHS) scam of 4000 crore, 11 people were reported to be allegedly involved in the corruption scam that included seven public servants.  The public servants who were found to be convicted include ex-Registrar Cooperative Societies Narayan Diwakar-the key player of this scam, Jt Registrar Jasbeer Singh, Assistant Registrar (Audit) Jitender Sharma, Assistant Registrar Ramesh Chandra, Dealing Assistant Rakesh Kumar and Inspector RCS Faiz Mohd and one P K Thirvani. Also, these people were declared guilty of criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code, cheating, forgery and for under the Prevention of Corruption Act, reports PTI.

 The Cooperative group housing scheme Scam started when the plot was fraudulently allotted by the convicts for Rangmahal CGHS in Pitampura area of North West Delhi.

According to CBI, people who are involved in CGHS case, "on the basis of forged and false documents" and "also successfully misrepresented the DDA and induced it to allot huge land on subsidised rates to the society" reports Indian Express.

Karnataka Wakf Board Land Scam  

Karnataka Wakf Board Land Scam is one among the named scandals in India. Karnataka Wakf Board Land Scam involved the alleged misappropriation of 200, 000 crore in Indian property funds and the scam is unearthed by Karnataka State Minorities Commission’s report that brought out in 2012.

Karnataka State Minorities Commission’s chairman, Anwar Manippady submitted a report to the Chief Minister of the state, D.V. Sadananda Gowda in March 2012, suspected that Karnataka Wakf Board controlled land of 27,000 acres has been misappropriated or allocated illicitly. Besides, the estimated value of the land is 2 lakh-crore.

The Muslim charitable trust, Karnataka Wakf Board, manages property that has originally been donated for the poor to utilize. But, the report alleged that the Wakf Board has permitted around 50 percent of its land to be misappropriated by board members and politicians in involvement with the real estate mafia for a fraction of its actual market value.