ED to File Chargesheet Against Gurugram Realty Firm in Multi-Crore PMAY Fraud

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is poised to file a chargesheet against a Gurugram-based real estate company, Ocean Seven Buildtech Pvt. Ltd. (OSBPL), and its promoters. The investigation centers around a multi-crore money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) and fraud with homebuyers, as reported by official sources on Sunday.

Swaraj Singh Yadav, the Managing Director (MD) and key person of OSBPL, was arrested by the federal probe agency on November 13 and is currently in judicial custody. The ED alleges that Yadav fraudulently diverted and laundered Rs 222 crore of homebuyers' funds collected under PMAY through several illegal means, including the cancellation and re-sale of units at inflated prices, collection of substantial cash premiums, and diversion of Escrow proceeds into shell entities.

The PMAY is a government initiative aimed at providing affordable housing to the economically weaker sections of society. The ED is also conducting an exercise to value the assets of the company and its promoters, with the possibility of attaching these assets under the anti-money laundering law and later restituting them to the victims of the alleged fraud.

A chargesheet is expected to be filed against Yadav and his linked entities soon. The agency has detected a pattern of accelerated liquidation of personal and company-held assets by Yadav across Gurugram, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan in recent times. This, according to the ED, indicates a clear attempt to dissipate assets and evade legal action.

The ED also claims that Yadav's wife, Sunita Swaraj, relocated to the United States in August 2025 and is residing at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. His children, a son and a daughter, are studying at Trinity College in Connecticut. The agency alleges that such accelerated sales and asset liquidation are clear attempts to evade legal action.

The ED found that Yadav generated illicit funds by cancelling allotments of flats under PMAY under false pretexts and reselling the same units at higher prices without refunding earlier payments, thereby collecting dual proceeds. Yadav also controlled cash-based premium collections over and above the money received through banking channels in such resales.

A similar cash-driven mechanism was used in the sale of parking areas, where only a nominal amount was routed through the company's bank, and the remaining premium was taken in cash as per Yadav's instructions. These actions are part of a larger investigation into the misuse of escrow funds and other violations mentioned in multiple FIRs for predicate offenses.

The ED found that the price of one PMAY flat was Rs 26.5 lakh, but the allotment of the eligible homebuyer was cancelled under the pretext of non-payment and subsequently re-sold at a price ranging from Rs 40-50 lakh. This resale process was executed without refunding the amount paid by the previous customer, resulting in the collection of dual payments against the same unit (house).

The agency also discovered that Yadav transferred a huge amount to the USA via a bank account opened in his wife's name through hawala transactions. Yadav's legal team told a Delhi court during his remand proceedings in November that the majority of FIRs on which the ED relied to file a money laundering case against their client have been settled.

The court of Additional Sessions Judge (Patiala House courts) Shefali Barnala Tandon subsequently rejected Yadav's plea to quash his arrest and allowed the ED's application for his 14 days custody on November 14. He was later sent to judicial custody.