The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested Aurobinda Santara, managing director of Odyssa Home and Commercials Private Limited on the charge of duping Rs 20 crore from home buyers.
The EOW had registered a case on the basis of a complaint filed by one Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra, an employee of TCS, alleging that the directors of the firm had cheated him and other investors of Rs 20 crore on the pretext of providing them litigation free flats in its apartment project, ‘Ganapati Homes,’ in Sampur Mouza near the Kalinga Studio in the city.
Investigation of the case revealed that the Odyssa Home and Commercials having its registered office at Nayapalli had Aurobindo Santara as managing director and Manoj Kumar Panda as director. Later, Saroj Kumar Panda joined as an additional director.
Ranjan booked a 3-BHK flat at a cost of Rs 65 lakh and on January 22, 2016 signed an agreement.
As per the agreement, the company was supposed to hand over the flat by the end of June, 2018. Subsequently, Ranjan availed a housing loan for the flat from the State Bank of India, Bhubaneswar, for which a tripartite agreement was signed with Saroj Panda as a party.
It was found during investigation that the company had collected around Rs 20 crore from 42 investors to provide them flats in ‘Ganapati Homes’ between 2013 and 2016. It had assured them to provide them the complete flats by 2018 and necessary agreement and MOUs were also executed to that effect. But, no flat has ever been allotted to any of the investors till now. The project is also not registered with the RERA.