Consumer Court sentences 24 years jail to builder

Consumer Court sentences 24 years jail to builder

The jail time is running concurrently.

The Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Nagpur sentenced a builder for 24 years simple imprisonment for cheating consumers on the pretext of selling bungalows. The builder — Revathi Associate and Infrastructure Limited's owner Suhas Morey – has been convicted for 3 years each for contempt in total eight cases.

The bench comprising of President Sanjay Patil and members Smita Chandekar and Avinash Prabhune termed the accused as a 'white collared criminal' and imposed a collective fine of Rs 3.20 lakhs for all these similar cases.

Additionally, the builder is directed to pay Rs 25,000 fine and Rs. 15,000 as cost to the complainants towards the contempt case in each of the eight cases. It was further ruled that the builder may be released from the jail in the event he returns the token amount taken from the complainant with interest.

The applicants, including Abhijeet Kamble, Mahadeo Sakharkar, Manoj Naik, Santosh Bichare, Vinod Patil, Shashikant Landge, Narendra Shirpurkar, and Satish Gedam, had filed cases against Morey for not handing them their properties for years despite taking advance payments.

In Kamble's case, the forum passed an order against Revati Associates on September 18, 2015, asking Morey to comply with its orders within a month. He was told to register a sale deed with the complainant for the bungalow he booked at Hingna on June 21, 2012.

If it was not possible due to technical difficulties, Morey was asked to return Rs2.76 lakh with 12% interest from the booking date. The builder was also imposed cost of Rs5,000 for mental and physical harassment to Kamble and Rs. 2,000 towards the litigation cost.

After the builder failed to comply with the orders, the complainant again approached the consumer court under Section 27 of the Consumer Protection Act on May 27, 2016.

The forum issued summons against the builder, but he failed to remain present. Subsequently, a non-bailable warrant was issued against him, but the police failed to execute it and the judges issued a show cause notice to them as well.

On February 16, 2017 Morey was arrested by the police, and he was produced him before the court. Although Morey confessed to the offence before the judges, he failed to comply with their orders in all eight cases and absconded again. He was thereafter arrested again and produced before the court on January 21, 2020.

The Accused are found guilty under Section 27 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, and Section 72 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, in each of the eight cases having similar prayers, and sentenced him to jail for three years in each case.