EOW arrests Kamla Mills owner for ‘duping’ businessman of Rs 67.50 crore

The alleged fraud took place between September 2013 and February 2024.

According to the police complaint, in 2013, Gowani, who has a real estate company, Amikrupa Land Developers, bought a 2,204 sq m plot in Santacruz (West) from the complainant, Surjeet Singh Arora.

The accused builder had promised to give Rs 20 crore, 10 flats, and a shop in lieu of the land. These flats would be from the residential tower built on the plot by Gowani’s company.

Gowani’s firm constructed a tower on the said land but allegedly failed to fulfil the promise and sold seven of the ten flats to third parties, thus defrauding the complainant to the tune of 67.50 crore, said a police officer from EOW.

After Arora filed a complaint, the EOW carried out a preliminary inquiry and, after finding material fit for a cognizable offence, registered a case against Gowani on Tuesday.

Gowani has been charged with sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), and 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant, or agent) of the Indian Penal Code.

More accused would be arrested in the case as the investigation proceeds and their roles are established, the officer said.

Gowani was earlier arrested in January 2018 on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in connection with the Kamla Mills compound fire incident, in which 14 people died.