PUNE: The Pune police on Saturday registered a cheating case against city-based developer D S Kulkarni and his wife based on a complaint of a senior citizen who failed to get back his investment from the real-estate group.
Besides, cheating, D S Kulkarni, popularly known as DSK and his wife have also been booked for criminal breach of trust, said police.
There are around 8,000 depositors who have reportedly invested around Rs 485 crore with D S Kulkarni’s group but due to a financial crisis, the investors have failed to get their money back from the developer.
For the last several months, all these investors, largely pensioners, have been queuing up at DSK’s office here in Pune.
As many as 170 depositors who have invested in the Fixed Deposit (FD) scheme of the DSK group, had even approached the Pune police couple of months ago, demanding a cheating case be registered against the firm.
“We have registered a case under relevant sections of the IPC and the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act against D S Kulkarni and Hemanti Kulkarni,” said Prabhakar Shinde, senior inspector at the Shivaji Nagar police station.
He said the complaint was filed by Jitendra Mulekar (65), who claimed to have invested Rs 4,40,647 in the scheme.
Mulekar claimed he neither received the principal amount nor the interest since February 2017.
The police said the economic offences wing is investigating the case.
“We are scrutinising other applications and verifying the exact amount invested by all the investors,” said a police officer from the EoW.
Despite repeated attempts, D S Kulkarni could not be reached for a comment.
However, in a video, released by DSK himself earlier this year on social media, the real estate developer had replied to all allegations and queries of deposit holders and investors.
“People have been investing with the group for the last 35 years and they were getting their returns on time. The firm started facing financial crunch from October 2016 as the real estate was going through a tough time and at the same time demonetisation exercise was announced, which added to cash crunch,” Kulkarni had said in the video message.
He had said that out of 21 construction projects, the work at 13 sites had stopped.
“We are working on all the fronts to find a solution to raise cash and I would like to ensure my investors that they will not lose their money,” he had said.
DSK had in September stepped down from the post of managing director of DS Kulkarni Developers Limited (DSKDL).
His son Shirish has succeeded him as the new managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company.
PTI