Mumbai: The city police have booked a director and project manager of a company for allegedly failing to pay ₹7.45 lakh for plumbing work done at the jumbo Covid centre at the Somaiya Engineering College.
According to the complainant, identified as Raghunath Rai (35), on September 9, 2021, he received a call from one Gaurav Agarwal, director of Saket Engineering India Pvt Ltd to meet him at his office in Juhu.
Rai said when he went for the meeting, Agarwal and his project manager Dudipta Das were present and offered a contract for plumbing work at the jumbo Covid centre at Somaiya Engineering College.
In his complaint, Rai said that on September 13, 2021, he had received the work order for the job with a written payment of ₹13.81 lakh. The order stated that the 20% advance would be paid once the work start.
On September 14, Rai started work and a month later, he was paid ₹2.76 lakh and was told to submit bills further to receive the rest of the payment.
Over the months, Rai stated that he received a payment of ₹6.32 lakh. In January 2022, after completing the job when he demanded the rest of his payment, Das began stalling him.
In July 2022, Rai said that when he went to the office of Saket Engineering India Pvt Ltd at Juhu and asked for the rest of his payment, Agarwal abused him and refused to give him the payment. “Agarwal then called up the police emergency number (100), and called the police claiming that I was trespassing,” said Rai.
Rai then told the police about the cheating after which the police recorded his statement and registered an FIR on Thursday. “We are investigating the case and recording statements of the company executives,” said a police officer from Juhu police station.