A legal battle between two developers over a housing project in the city has ended up before the Delhi High Court, leaving the judges with the initial decision on jurisdiction. Following directions from a court in the capital, Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) filed an FIR against Godrej Properties and its top management in connection with Godrej Air. Orris Infrastructure, the complainant, claimed in its plea that Godrej Properties was supposed to pay Rs 2.02 billion for 10 acres of land for the project by September 2022 but had only paid Rs 370 million to date. The EOW case invokes sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. On May 28, the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (South-West) Dwarka, Rajat Goyal, after hearing Orris's petition, ordered the FIR to be registered and a compliance report sent to the court. The case was filed the next day. Godrej Properties subsequently moved the Delhi High Court to quash the lower court's order. After hearing both parties, Judge Dinesh Kumar Sharma observed on June 7, This court considers that this case falls within the category of rarest of rare cases where the documents filed show the jurisdiction of the courts in Gurgaon, and the learned CMM has passed an order for registration of FIR despite noting that the investigation agency reported that the offence alleged has been committed within the jurisdiction of Gurgaon and the complaint has been sent to Gurgaon. The court stayed any coercive action in the case until the next hearing, scheduled for July 11. Godrej Properties' counsel argued that the lower court had passed the order mechanically without having territorial jurisdiction. Orris's counsel, however, argued that different meetings between both parties had taken place in Delhi, within the territorial jurisdiction of the Dwarka court. A spokesperson for Orris told the source, The company had given its 10 acres to Godrej for construction and in turn was to get Rs 2 billion by September 2022. Instead of giving money back to Orris, the builder siphoned off the money and bought a parcel of land of 14 acres adjacent to the project. In this case, an FIR was registered against Godrej. A spokesperson for Godrej Properties accused Orris of trying to cause reputational damage. This is an attempt by Orris to damage the reputation of Godrej Properties by repeating allegations that have already been investigated by relevant agencies and found to be baseless. Upon learning of this action, we immediately took appropriate legal recourse, and the Delhi High Court, based on complete facts placed by us, has passed an order granting stay. Accordingly, the matter is now sub-judice. We are fully confident of our bona fides, look forward to having these claims rejected once again, and to taking suitable legal action to prevent the recurrence of such defamatory and criminal claims in the future, the spokesperson commented. (Source: ET Infra)