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The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the city police has arrested the trustee of a public charitable trust for allegedly conspiring with other trustees to defraud a developer of INR 21 crore under the pretext of jointly redeveloping a property.
Complainant Javed Hussain, who owns Reliable Investment and Developers, had spent INR 15 crore settling existing tenants of the property based on an agreement with the trustee. The arrested individual was identified as Nasli alias Bunny Batliwala (49), a trustee of the HIMS Botawala Charitable Trust.
The charitable trust, established under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act-1950, aims to provide medical aid, education, and welfare support to the poor, deprived and orphans in Surat. It owns two properties - Calcutta Confectionery Works and Sitladevi Industrial Estate in Mahim and Nicole, as well as the Richardson building at Horniman Circle in South Mumbai.
Several gala owners in these buildings had not been paying rent and were running illegal businesses. The trust had given Mahim Property on lease in 1958 for 40 years. In 1997, the then trustees agreed that Javed would take possession of the galas by compensating leaseholders and tenants, and in return the Botawala Trust would jointly redevelop the plots.
Javed's FIR alleges that in 2010, he started taking possession of the galas by compensating 21 out of 40 gala owners by paying INR 21 crore. In 2013, the trust passed a resolution to jointly redevelop the Mahim property with Javed's company. However, in 2018, the trust sold the property to Badri Infraprojects for INR 28 crore without his consent or knowledge, his complaint stated. Similarly, in the Nicole and Richardson buildings, Javed paid INR 2.59 crore in compensation to trustees Nasli Batliwala and Shamim Botawala, who allegedly did not deposit the funds in the trust's account.
The arrest is a major development in the case of alleged fraud by the trustees of the charitable trust. If found guilty, it could undermine the public's faith in such organizations meant to help the underprivileged. The police will hope this arrest helps uncover the full extent of the conspiracy and brings justice to the complaining developer.
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