NOIDA: In 2012-13, 1,400 investors booked flats in a housing society planned along the
Yamuna expressway. Five years later, in what has become a recurring theme in
NCR
, they are preparing for a legal battle for refunds. Waiting for the flats isn’t an option because the project never took off, and was called off by the developer.
At least 39 of those investors who had booked homes in Sunworld’s
Vandita
have decided to approach the national consumer forum for their money to be returned to them.
The buyers claimed the project, located in Sector 22D of the Yamuna expressway region, was called off last year, but the refund cheques have bounced. Each investor is claiming a refund in the range of Rs 6.5 lakh to Rs 8.5 lakh. The developer, however, claims it has returned the money to 75% of the buyers.
Officials in the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) said Sunworld had bought 104 acres for Vandita in 2010 and deposited Rs 100 crore with it.
Sunworld alleged YEIDA had given it only 65% of the required land and that too in patches — not as a large swathe — which made it difficult for the Vandita project to be executed.
Told about the unavailability of land being cited by the builder for the project being called off,
Arun Vir Singh
, the CEO of Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), said Sunworld owed the authority around Rs 379 crore as of December 31, which included the lease amount, interests and farmers’ additional compensation at 64.7%.
Singh said the dues kept mounting despite YEIDA granting interest waivers to Sunworld for two years from 2013 when a case was filed in the National Green Tribunal.
YEIDA had in 2015 cancelled the land lease granted to Sunworld, but the builder secured a stay order from Allahabad high court in March that year. “We are a group of 39 buyers at Vandita who had approached the builder and were told that the project was cancelled. We asked for refunds, but the cheques given to us have all bounced. The builder is not responding to our calls and emails. We have already approached the economic offences wing in Delhi. Now, we will take this matter to the consumer court,” said
Sumit Saxena, a homebuyer.
Representatives of Sunworld met YEIDA officials last week and were given an opportunity to negotiate on the terms and conditions of paying the dues. “We offered them instalments so that they can pay us the amount and we can hand over the land. But at present, their dues are so huge that we cannot give them any more land unless the payments are made,” said a YEIDA official.
Sunworld director Y K Gupta said, “We are in a financial crunch. We had paid over Rs 100 crore to YEIDA and never got the entire land. We had to cancel the project. Almost 75% of buyers have got their money. Some may not have received the money because of the crisis. We are working on it. Meanwhile, YEIDA has assured us we will get the entire land in three months.”
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