Millionaire slumdogs: The high and mighty turn 'poor' to grab free flats meant for the destitute
By Aditi Raja
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Wherever there is land or property in Mumbai, can a scam be far behind?
Perhaps not. After Adarsh Housing Society in Colaba and Aashirwad Housing Society in Andheri East, the latest controversy centres around Juhu Taj Society.
And those under the scanner are film stars like Sanjay Khan, wife Zarine (actor Hrithik Roshan's mother-in-law), daughter Farah Khan Ali, a former Maharashtra police chief and some retired army officers.
The Juhu Taj Society is for residents of the Garib Mazdoor Sangh slum
The Juhu Taj Society, meant for rehabilitating slum dwellers in the Juhu area, is being developed by Shailesh Sawla of Kunal Developers.
Under the scheme floated by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, 56 slum dwellers of the area were to be given flats free of cost.
The builder allegedly connived with the authorities such as the SRA, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority to allot 133 tenements to ineligible people.
Sanjay Khan and his family, Tops Security's owners Rahul Nanda and his father Major R.G. Nanda, Rahul's wife Sunita, his mother Ranita and Trig Security's owner Captain Swaran Salaria were allegedly passed off as slum dwellers and allotted flats in Juhu Taj Society.
P.S.Pasricha (pictured left) reportedly invested Rs 50 lakh in his wife¿s name in the Juhu Taj Society project
The society also features another high-profile allottee, former director general of police of Maharashtra P.S. Pasricha, who is said to have invested Rs 50 lakh in his wife's name. Pasricha is considered close to the builder, Shailesh Sawla.
An entire floor of the building was said to have been transferred in the name of Pasricha's wife and son.
When the matter came to light, 18 residents of the Garib Mazdoor Sangh slum in the posh locality petitioned the Bombay high court alleging that the builder increased the number of eligible slum dwellers from 56 to over 178 and allotted the flats to some of the city's movers and shakers.
Allotments cancelled
The SRA recently informed the high court that 78 such 'ineligible' allotments had been cancelled. But the petitioners are now moving the court again to initiate punitive action against the officers responsible for passing off millionaires as 'slum dwellers'.
The petitioners have alleged that the beneficiaries used forged papers to show they were residents of a slum in Juhu and thus entitled to free houses. An FIR was registered against Sawla in 2006.
Five persons, including Sawla, were arrested. These included Alok Agarwal (codeveloper), Rajendra Pagnis (architect), Siddique Shaikh (chief promoter of Juhu Taj) and D. Garje (society secretary).
The Mumbai Police's economic offences wing, which probed the case in 2007, had found that the film personalities and the exarmymen had showed their residence at the Garib Mazdoor slum.
Of them, only Farah Khan Ali is remotely associated with slums as she ran a workshop in one of the hutments in the area.
Farah has denied the allegations but her name did figure in the allotees' list. Each flat in the building is about 225 sqft carpet area and worth almost Rs 65 lakh.
Vishal Thadani, lawyer for the slum dwellers, said the SRA had re-examined the documents of those who were allotted flats. Many of them did not attend the hearings before the SRA secretary.
'Although the SRA's affidavit states the slum dwellers' society and the developer made allotments without informing the SRA, we don't think it is possible.
'We'll move the court next week with a fresh petition to prosecute the corrupt officers involved in the scam,' he added.
Crorepatis or slum dwellers?
Sanjay Khan (pictured right) owns a posh bungalow in Juhu and other prominent property in South Mumbai
The gross income of Rahul Nanda¿s TOPSGRUP was Rs 300 crore on March 31, 2010
Everyone wants a piece of land pie
By KRISHN KUMAR
In 2006-2007, slum-dwellers in Bharat Nagar, Bandra East, were left stunned when builders offered them up to Rs 1 crore for their small hutments. But it wasn't that surprising.
What the builders wanted was to demolish the slums - located near the much sought-after Bandra Kurla business district- and construct residential apartments and offices in their place, which would yield them much greater profits.
With realty prices shooting up in Mumbai in the last decade, it's no wonder that everyone, from businessmen to film stars to even defence personnel, wants a piece of the pie.
'Prices shot up from 1995 onwards as politicians and builders formed a cartel to grab land,' a real estate agent said.
Another such agent, Jawahar Thakkar, added that land prices in Mumbai were still affordable till 2000. 'Till that year, if you had Rs 1 crore, you could afford a seafacing flat in South Mumbai. But today, all you can afford for Rs 1 crore is a 600 sqft house in the far end of the city,' he said.
A one-time small builder who has been booted out of the trade further explained the rising land prices.
'When builders entered politics and politicians became developers, small builders were thrown out of the market as developers backed by huge pockets (read politicians) began purchasing huge tracts of land to invest black money. This pushed up the prices,' he said.
Out of desperation or greed for land, many are using fraudulent means to make money this way. For instance, a Mumbai-based MLA from the MNS was accused of cheating a senior citizen couple of crores by developing their land but not handing it to them. Top politicians in Maharashtra have resorted to a more sophisticated way of taking over huge tracts of land.
All that they do is form a trust purportedly working in the field of education, then approach the state to lease land at rates that are just a pittance. A retired bureaucrat said the 'real scam' was the state giving land at 25 per cent of the market cost.
On the crafty politicians who use trusts, he added: 'The trust just sits over the land without developing it, hoping for the prices to go further up so that the land can be used for commercial purposes.
They make a killing this way.' Builders are hand in glove with not just politicians but also urban department officials.
One such official named in the Adarsh Housing Society scam allegedly has 17 houses in the entire Maharashtra. 'All of them have been built on government schemes and are located in posh areas of Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.There are many such bureaucrats who own close to 10 flats,' a source said.
Even army officers have not been able to escape the lure of land. Even before the Adarsh Society scam, army officers had started parcelling off land in the state to unscrupulous builders.
For instance, in Kandivili a group of army officials gave out land near a sensitive location to Kalpataru builders.
The same group also gave another piece of land in Pune to the same developer. The CBI, which is investigating the cases, found that the officials who had sold off the land were bribed with money or flats on the land that was being developed.
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