CHENNAI: A leading real estate baron was arrested by Central Crime Branch sleuths of the city police on Thursday after his relatives levelled charges of land grabbing against him.
VGP Housing Pvt Ltd director V G P Rajadas (45) –– son of late V G Panneerdas, who introduced instalment sale of household items and later set up a popular amusement park in the city –– was picked at his office in Saidapet by a CCB team based on a written complaint by his aunt’s son-in-law to the City Police Commissioner, alleging “cheating, misappropriation and impersonation”.
In his complaint dated June 3, A Edwin Christopher alleged that his late father-in-law M Mariadas, son of Panneerdas’s sister Mariammal, bought 5.5 acres of land in Karapakkam village in Tambaram Taluk. “He purchased the land for `3 lakh in 1981 and set up a prawn farm on it with a bank loan of `2.36 lakh,” V Malaichami, third son-in-law of Mariadas, told Express on Thursday.
“As the farm incurred losses, he was unable to repay the accumulated loan amount of about Rs 5 lakh,” Malaichami said, adding that his father-in-law, however, managed to save the land from auction by returning Rs 3 lakh. In 2004, Mariadas gave the power of attorney to VGP Housing Pvt Ltd for sale of the land and died four years later — on April 27, 2008.
Despite the power of attorney becoming null and void after Mariadas’s death, Rajadas entered into a sale agreement on the land “with a current market value of Rs 35 crore” in November 2008 with V G Santhosam (75), his father’s brother and director of V G Panneerdas and Co Pvt Ltd, the complaint said.
“We were unaware about the existence of the property, and came to know of it only when the bank sent us an auction notice,” Malaichami said. “We paid the dues and retained the property. But when we went to visit the site, we were chased out by Rajadas’ hired goons,” he claimed.