Sea-facing Juhu flat linked to Harshad Mehta to be auctioned
Mumbai: A sea-facing apartment in Juhu linked with the late stockbroker and convicted fraudster Harshad Mehta has been put up for auction by a special court.
The apartment is located within the Janki Kutir compound in Juhu, best known for housing the iconic Prithvi Theatre. Situated on the second floor of Vandana Cooperative Housing Society in Janki Kutir, the flat has a super built-up area of 1,150 square feet.
On October 10, a special court for offences relating to transactions in securities permitted the sale of the property on an “as is, where is” basis, meaning it will be sold in its present condition.
The apartment was owned by the late Sushila Shah, a partner in a firm called Romil Exports, who was the “judgment debtor” of Orion Travels, a company in which Harshad Mehta and his brother Ashwin Mehta were partners. A judgment debtor is an individual or firm that owes a sum of money as per a court order.
The public notice issued on Monday has solicited offers from anyone interested in purchasing the sea-facing apartment. An unencumbered flat in this building commands around ₹45,000 to ₹50,000 per square feet, according to a local real estate player.
This isn’t the first time the authorities have attempted to auction this apartment. Similar attempts were made in 2021, 2023 and February this year, but there were no bidders.
Ever since the 1992 securities scam came to light, authorities have auctioned several assets belonging to Mehta, including eight apartments in a Worli Sea Face building, Madhuli, that totalled up to 12,600 sq ft. In February 2009, Mumbai-based stockbroker Ashok Samani bought these flats for ₹32.6 crore.
Mehta, often referred to as the “Big Bull” of Dalal Street, orchestrated the ₹700-crore securities scam, involving large-scale market manipulation. He used forged bank receipts and fake cheques to obtain huge sums from banks without authorisation and then invested them in certain stocks to artificially inflate their prices. The fraud ultimately led to a market crash in which countless small investors lost their life savings.
Mehta was eventually arrested and faced 27 criminal charges. He was convicted in four of them before his death in 2001 due to a heart attack while in jail.
