Brief history of the case so far
Smt Harvinder Kaur acquired the land in Sy No 19, Khajaguda Village, Serilingampally Mandal, Ranga Reddy district, admeasuring Acres 10-32 Guntas in the year 1982
Smt Harvinder Kaur, as a family arrangement, gifted to each of her two daughters Chetna and Mohini one third of the above land while the remaining 3 acres 24 guntas continued to be in the name of Harvinder Kaur.
Subsequently, since Chetna had migrated to USA and did not want to get involved in the complexities of capital gain etc. in USA, the Gift deed in favour of Chetna was cancelled on 13.03.2017 vide Document No. 1844 of 2017.
The ownership pattern of the entire land of Acres 10-32 Guntas thereafter was
1) Smt Mohini Chawla was the owner of Acres 3-24 Guntas
2) Smt Harvinder Kaur was the owner of Acres 7-08 Guntas
In 2017, Developer SAS Infra (represented by its Partners Sh Gude Venkateswara Rao and Sh Rajkumar Kurra) approached the landowners to enter into a Development Agreement to develop commercial office and retail space. SAS Infra (a partnership firm) was subsequently converted to a company, SAS I Tower Pvt Ltd. Hereinafter, they are referred to as SAS Infra or “SAS” in this document.
SAS Infra took copes of all title documents including the cancellation deed for their due diligence and obtained a legal opinion from Advocate KVCMS Sarma dt 27-10-2017. This legal opinion and its contents were not disclosed to the Land Owners
SAS Infra, entered into an MOU dt 01-11-2017 with Smt Harvinder Kaur and Smt Mohini Chawla for purchase of 50% of the land and Development rights for the remaining 50% of the land. In this MOU, the landowners were to get 50% of the area to be built on their land covered under the Development agreement or 25% of the total built up area of project to be executed on the whole land admeasuring 10 acres and 32 guntas. As per the MOU, SAS Infra was to make a payment of Rs 175 Cr by 31-03-2018. This MOU did not become effective since SAS Infra paid us only Rs 39.65 Cr until 31-03-2018.
Sh GV Rao pleaded with us that he did not receive payments of the assets already sold by Sh GV Rao and family in Khammam and Bengaluru and requested us to grant him time for purchase of land. SAS also came out with the plea that since there is no restriction on FAR in Hyderabad and we have a corner three side open plot, they can build at least 50 lakh sq ft area against normal around 40 lakh sq ft which another builder would perhaps build. To make this viable they also made a request that we should waive the payment towards advance/security deposit under the Development Agreement and also reduce our share vis a vis what was agreed in the MOU. They also requested that we should grant them time till March 2019 to purchase the fifty percent land.
We agreed to both their requests in good faith. We not only signed the DA-GPA for 5 acres 16 guntas without any advance/ security deposit, we also agreed, to substantially reduce our share from 50% to 36% out of the total area of 25 lakh sq ft attributable to fifty percent land. Apart from the amount of Rs 39.65 crore that they paid us by 31-03-2018, they could however pay us only another Rs 8 crore in August 2018.
After a few months, SAS again approached us with plans prepared by renowned architects, with almost 67 lakhs sq ft built up area, and requested us for further concession to ensure viability of the project. They also wanted to restrict the purchase of land to bare minimum and put the remaining land into the Development Agreement to retain liquidity for construction of the project.
After series of negotiations, it was agreed that our area percentage will remain unchanged. However, in order to increase the viability of the project, the cost price of the land being purchased by SAS will be substantially reduced from Rs 40 cr per acre to Rs 25 cr per acre and the purchase of land shall be restricted to the extent for which consideration is received by March 31, 2019 and the remaining area shall be made part of the development agreement and the share of land owners will be proportionately increased.
Accordingly, we executed sale deeds in their favour for an extent of 1 acre 36.4 guntas and the remaining left-over area was made part of the Development Agreement with the Deed of amendment to 13916/2018 executed on 22-03-2019 and our share in the built-up area was accordingly increased to 29.6 percent of the overall built-up area in the combined project being built on the total 10 acres 32 guntas.
As of 31-03-2019, the land ownership stood revised as follows
1) SAS Infra owned Acres 1-36.4 Guntas
2) Smt Harvinder Kaur owned Acres 6-17.6 Guntas
3) Smt Mohini Kaur owned Acres 2-18 Guntas
Pursuant to this, a supplementary allocation agreement was signed in June 2019 allocating 19,82,713 sq ft. built up area to us. This allocation agreement which was not formally registered had a clause (7) which is reproduced below: -
"The Landowners may, upon mutual agreement with the Developer, agree to sell part of the land under the Combined Development Agreement in favor of the Developer. In such case, this allocation agreement will be revised to surrender proportionate share from each category of Retail, Hotel, Townhall and office space. Schedule C will accordingly be modified to reflect the revised area allocated to the Landowners and the revised area for the Share retained by the Developer"
This clause was inserted at our (the landowners) request as we were keen to purchase a house in the name of Harvinder Kaur to get benefits u/s 54F of the I.T. Act and also raise some money to take care of our future capital gain tax liability arising at the time of OC by selling some more land. Precisely for this reason this allocation agreement was not registered. The SAS infra were however never in a position to pay any amounts despite several requests from us. We had to therefore forego the benefit u/s 54F of the I.T.Act.
Since the June 2019 Agreement was not registered, in Aug 2021, on the request and insistence of SAS infra, an additional supplementary deed and allocation of area was registered by the parties covering the entire land of 10 acres 32 guntas duly paying the additional stamp duty. Incidentally our area was brought down from 19,82,713 sq ft to 18,85,125 sq ft. in this amendment because of revised plans prepared by SAS. This actually meant taking away to a significant extent, the benefit of additional area promised to us in lieu of which we had given them huge concessions in the shape of waiver of advance/security deposit in respect of the Development Agreement, reduction in our percentage of share in the built-up area (vis a vis what was agreed in the MOU) and huge reduction in the sale price of the area of 1acre 36.4 guntas already sold to them. In the light of this, after negotiations, to compensate us for reduction in the area, we were allocated a larger area in retail within the overall 18,85,125 sq ft and a clause was inserted that there will be no further changes to the plan and that the land owners will be entitled to 29.6 percent of the project with a minimum of 18,00,000 sq ft area even if there is any further reduction in the constructed area. Since SAS infra could not buy 50% of the land, we had concern regarding our ability to meet our capital gain tax liability arising at the time of OC. SAS Infra, to assure us, signed an agreement on the same day, along with the additional supplementary deed mentioned above, to give us an interest free loan to meet our tax liability until we are able to raise finance after leasing our area.
In January 2023, SAS Infra again requested for small modifications in the allocation agreement to suit their business needs after which Document No 1242/2023 was executed at their behest
As is clear from the above, not only several concessions were given vis a vis the original understanding, but the allocation was also modified several times in 2019, 2021 and 2023 as per the requests of SAS to suit their business needs. Not once did SAS inform the land owners of any title issue or title defect that needed rectification
In June 2023, Sh. G V Rao started harassing us to reduce our area share. When we declined this request, he sent us a notice on baseless and fraudulent grounds.
To intimidate and blackmail us, he filed a baseless complaint in the court based on which sec 153(3) Cr. PC proceedings were initiated. All the details of this criminal case and the replies filed by us to the Police are presented in the section “criminal case filed by SAS”. He also filed COP 85/2023 in the Hon’ble Commercial Civil Court. In both the criminal case as well as COP 85/2023, Sh. G V Rao weaved a false narrative that he did not buy fifty percent land as originally envisaged because of the defect in title and that he went ahead with the project on the assurance that Chetna will come to India to ratify the gift cancellation deed and that we had not disclosed that Chetna had expired in September 2018.The fact however is that he never raised the issue of unilateral cancellation of gift deed until January 2023 and had actually attended the prayer ceremony in Delhi after Chetna’s death on Oct 7, 2018 along with Sh. Raj Kumar Kurra. The whole matter of the unilateral cancellation of gift deed and how Sh. G V Rao tried to exploit this and blackmail us is discussed in a separate note in the section “Issue of unilateral cancellation of gift deed”. Despite multiple hearings in the court, SAS was unable to obtain any order in its favour. Meanwhile in the counter COP 96/2023 filed by us, the Hon’ble Commercial Court granted an injunction order in our favour restraining further sales by SAS Infra.
After miserably failing to get the injunction order vacated and having realised that his support system had collapsed after change of regime, Sh. G V Rao approached us for mediation through the good offices of Honourable Justice Santosh Reddy (retd.) High Court Judge, who was earlier proposed as Arbitrator in the arbitration notice sent by Sh. G V Rao before filing COP 85/20923. Keeping in view the interest of purchasers, we agreed for the mediated settlement which was signed on 20-02-2024. In clause 2(xv) of this settlement agreement, to ensure that no further diversion of funds takes place, it was stipulated that all future sale agreements will be after price verification by the landowners. This agreement was followed by a revised area allocation agreement signed vide document no 8260/2024. The salient points in this document are:-
1) As per covenant (vi) the Developer was to submit the revised plan to various authorities such as Fire, GHMC etc for approval by end of May 2024
2) as per covenant (xii) any further sale on floors 26, 27, 28, 29 of Tower A1 will require price verification and clearance by the landowners, explicitly in writing to ensure all future sales were being done in cheque and at appropriate market value.
3) As per covenant (xiii), since the Developer may need to raise further liquidity, the land owners consented to allow 3-4 investors who may infuse fund in lieu of area and will in turn retain the area that the Developer is required to retain.
4) As per covenant (xxviii), the Developer was to transfer the maintenance and corpus fund collected so far from purchasers into a separate account by 10-06-2024.
5) As per clause (12) of agreement dtd 20-02-2024 and covenant (xxxii) of doc 8260/2024, in case of any dispute, the parties were debarred from going to civil court and any dispute was to be referred to two mediators, both of which were proposed by Directors of SAS Infra, one by Sh. G V Rao and the other by Sh. Raj kumar Kurra
In June 2024, we started following up with SAS on a few basic compliances with the agreement 8260/2024 to which we received no response. The revised approvals were not applied for and neither was the maintenance and corpus fund segregated. We were also not given adequate project updates and there was no progress on the project site. In October 2024, it came to our attention that SAS was blatantly violating the terms of the agreement dtd 20-02-02024 and Doc. 8260/2024 and selling more areas at abysmally low rates and indulging in accommodation sales in favour of business associates and partners of Sh. G V Rao. Despite raising these concerns SAS continued to violate the settlement agreement and never referred a single sale to us for price verification These actions of SAS were eroding the viability of the project and putting the project completion in jeopardy.
When these violations were brought to the notice of the mediators, Hon’ble Justice Sh Anugu Santosh Reddy resigned from his position as Mediator. We later learnt that Sh. G V Rao, within a few days of the settlement agreement induced his son Sh. Anugu Shantan to buy a 8811sq ft luxury flat in SAS crown Tower and also engaged him as consultant in one of his LLPs. Though the good offices of the other Mediator were available, Sh.G V Rao instead of responding to him, started sending notices to us to dilute the terms of the settlement agreement. He also started pressurising us to release the mortgaged area and allow strata sales in the mall which was in violation of terms of our agreement from day one. Sh. GV Rao commissioned one Mr. Chakardhari to start a whatsapp group to start putting pressure on us. Mr. Chakardhari posing as President of a group of investors has been continuously posting chats in this group only to instigate the allottees against us and to pressurise us to dilute terms of our agreement.
Left with no other option, we were forced to approach the Honourable RERA and EOW. The Honourable RERA after noting the violations, took Suo-Moto cognizance of the case and issued a notice to SAS infra. The EOW after preliminary investigation, registered an FIR (7/2025) against Sh G V Rao and his co-directors. Incidentally after registration of the FIR, Sh. G V Rao has promptly cancelled several sale transactions.
As Sh. G V Rao refused to share the sale data with us, our initial complaints to RERA and EOW were based on limited information collected by us from IGRS site. After Props AMC shared the sale data with us under intimation to SAS, more and more illegal actions of Sh.GV Rao are coming to light. From the sale data that SAS provided to Props AMC for the purpose of raising loans, we discovered that SAS had sold 6.5 lakh sq ft of area before the execution of the DA-GPA. They had cheated several buyers by giving false representations in the MOUs. In an attempt to hide these sales from us, Sh. G V Rao gave our wrong addresses in these MOUs executed by him.
An analysis of the sale data reveals that huge amounts of cash has been collected as a part of the sale consideration in SAS I Tower project which has been diverted by Sh GV Rao and family to purchase lands for other projects such as SAS Crown. This analysis has also been brought to the notice of EOW. In fact at several points of time in the past, concerns were raised by his Co-Director, Sh Rajkumar Kurra. It has now come to light that Sh Rajkumar Kurra has resigned from Directorship of this project and entered into a settlement with Sh GV Rao to swap his equity for other projects. Some of the letters/ mails sent by Sh Raj Kumar to Sh. G V Rao and Mediators which have come to our notice, in which serious allegations of diversion of resources and material are levelled against Sh. G V Rao are also put on in this website.
True to his manipulative nature , Sh. G V Rao has again raised the issue of unilateral cancellation of gift deed in the context of a letter mischievously managed from some employee of Union Bank of India. Even before we are made aware of this, the letter is broadcast on the Whatsapp group administered by Mr. Chakardhari who promptly proceeded to issue a legal notice to us. The issue of unilateral cancellation of gift deed and the matter of raising bank finance are discussed in separate explanatory notes on this website. Notice issued by Sh. Chakardhari and our reply are also put on the website in the section "Communication and notices from Sh. Chakradhari".
The strategy of Sh. G V Rao is to complete the 23 lakh area sold by SAS and then start litigation against us again. SAS is significantly compromising the quality of finishing and reducing the specifications against what was promised. With the help of Sh Chakradhari, SAS is misleading all allottees by circulating a much lower cost estimate for pending work completion and posting pictures of external development and fancy lighting. They have also been circulating an estimate of Rs 411 cr. by CBRE submitted in Feb 2025 to make out a case that the project can be completed by a loan of around Rs 250cr which they can borrow by mortgaging the area covered under the retention clause. The estimate of Rs 411 cr by CBRE is only for MEP and in this estimate also, the scope/ specs of HVAC and BMS are reduced by nearly Rs 70cr vis a vis the original specifications. A detailed note has been uploaded in the section “Pending cost for Completion”.
SAS has lured many small investors with the promise of high returns. These small investors, many of whom have raised bank loans, will find it very difficult to deal with this property. SAS I Tower is designed to be leased to large MNC clients and SAS has retained the leasing rights for the building. The units have been sold without any proper passages or access to their specific areas. If SAS does not meet grade A building specifications and if SAS is unable to lease the area, the investors will neither be able to lease out, nor self-occupy the area purchased. The real commotion will be after obtaining OC for the 23 lakh sq ft area sold by the Developer. While the Developer would technically be complying with the agreement and the statutory obligations under RERA, the small investors will be left high and dry and instead of getting a return would have to shell out money towards maintenance and municipal taxes. A detailed note highlighting the issue is uploaded under heading “Challanges of leasing for small investors”
Our apprehension is that SAS may abandon or treat this project as manure for other projects as is corroborated from the recent paid article published at their instance in Forbes magazine eulogising Sh GV Rao’s rise as a real estate magnate where there is no mention of the I tower which is his first and biggest project.