Delhi court takes cognizance of complaint, issues summons to private company for cheating Delhi-based hotel

New Delhi [India], April 7 : Taking cognisance of a complaint, the Patiala House Court of Delhi has summoned City Fincorp Services, Advance City Fincorp Consultancy along with several accused persons in an alleged case of cheating and criminal breach of trust.
The Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, Tarunpreet Kaur in an order passed last week summoned Ajay Virmani, Subhash Sharma, Ravi Kumar, Sapan Dhawan, City Fincorp Service, Advance City Fincorp Consultancy Pvt. Ltd, Dinesh Sharma and Lalit Kumar and also took cognizance of an offence under sections 420 and 406 of IPC.
The Court has directed all accused to appear before the court on September 1, 2023.
The court passed the direction after hearing a complaint filed by Joy Hotel Resort Pvt. Ltd, which alleged that the accused were imposters who deceived people in the name CitiCorp Finance (India) Ltd. by representing the accused company as City FinCorp Services which resembles the name of CitiCorp Finance (India) Ltd.
In 2015, complainant Manoj Sharma, authorized representative of Joy Hotel and Resort Pvt. Ltd. filed a criminal complaint against accused persons namely Ajay Virmani, Subhash Sharma alias Grover, Ravi Kumar, Sapan Dhawan who are agents of the accused company City Fincorp Service (CFS), Ajmer.
The complaint was also filed against Dinesh Mittal and Lalit Kumar who were directors of the Accused company Advance City Fincorp Consultancy Pvt. Ltd and other unknown persons for cheating the complainant and forging documents for the same purpose.
That Advocate Vijay Aggarwal and Neeraj Tiwari, appearing for the complainant argued that all the accused persons actively participated in the commission of a crime, along with the complainant company by making various misrepresentations and inducements thereby causing wrongful loss to the complainant company and wrongful gain to themselves.
The counsel for the complainant argued that "The accused persons came to know about the fact that the complainant company was in dire need of money. Since they are involved in the business of arranging loans, therefore they offered the Complainant Company for arranging the loan in the amount of Rs 200 Crores at 8 per cent interest and the offer was presented in such a manner that the complainant company was deceived to believe that the funds/loans amount will be disbursed at a lightning speed with minimum documentation whereas the repayment of the said loan would have been made by the complainant company after a substantial period of time".
Meanwhile, accused Sapan Dhawan contacted the complainant on the pretext of the need of Rs 12.50 lakhs for some court proceedings pending against him and the payment may kindly be made as the same may be deducted from the final amount due. The complainant company in good faith transferred Rs. 12.50 Lacs, the counsel said.
Advocate Aggarwal, further argued that "To the utter disbelief and shock of the complainant, the company received a rejection letter that the loan cannot be sanctioned. After such refusal, the complainant company sought for return of post-dated cheques which were handed over to the accused persons but the accused persons presented the said cheques in utter criminal breach of the trust reposed in them by the Complainant Company that the said cheques are not against any liability and were entrusted to them."
The complainant stated that he later learned upon enquiry that City Fincorp Service, Ajmer was not a part of Citicorp Finance (India) Limited and also no license was issued by the Reserve Bank of India for functioning as a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC).