Following a court order, police has booked former Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, former Formula One driver Michael Schumacher, and 11 others for fraud and criminal conspiracy. The FIR was filed in response to a complaint filed by a Delhi lady accusing them of fraud. Reports suggest that necessary reviewing is being done by the authorities.
Shafali Agarwal, a resident of New Delhi's Chattarpur Mini Farm, reported that she had booked an apartment in a Sharapova-named development. According to her, one of the towers in the project was named after Schumacher. She held that due to the association of the said nature, these International Celebrities are part of the fraud involved.
The project was supposed to be finished by 2016, but it never got off the ground, according to the complaint. She said that by associating with and promoting the hoax, international celebrities were complicit in it. She had previously filed a lawsuit in Gurugram court against M/S Realtech Development and Infrastructure (INDIA) Pvt. Ltd, other developers, Sharapova, and Schumacher, alleging that they had defrauded her of around Rs 80 lakh.
The FIR has been considered Us. 34 (Common Intention), 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy), 406 (Criminal Breach of Trust) and 420 (Cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 in Badshahpur Police Station.
The complainant has mentioned in her complaint that Sharapova’s involvement with the developers was a mere gimmick that was done to entice buyers. She mentioned further that the tennis star made false promises and even dined in with several buyers for the sake of this futile project.
The complainant told the court that she and her husband had reserved a residential flat in the Sharapova project in Sector 73, Gurugram, but that the developer companies had duped them into investing money in a project that was never supposed to be delivered.
"We learned about the project through ads and contacted the firm management after seeing photographs of the project and hearing a lot of false promises," her complaint read.
