ED Files PMLA Complaint Against Sai Group: How Long Will Homebuyers Wait For Justice?
On 31 July 2026, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Mumbai Zonal Office, filed a Prosecution Complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, before the Special Court (PMLA), Mumbai, against Jayesh Vinod Tanna, Deep Vinod Tanna, Vivek Jayesh Tanna and seven entities of the Sai Group. The court has ordered issuance of pre-cognizance notices to the accused.
The ED’s investigation, initiated in 2024 on the basis of multiple First Information Reports registered by Mumbai Police under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act, 1963 (MOFA), has quantified wrongful loss to buyers, original society members (old tenants) and investors at Rs 43.73 crore. These losses relate to proposed redevelopment projects located in DN Nagar, Andheri, Kandivali and Goregaon within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The agency has stated that promoters of Sai Group entities resorted to various malpractices to divert funds collected from flat and shop buyers for personal benefits, resulting in non-delivery of the projects.
Earlier provisional attachments under Section 5 of the PMLA total Rs 43.73 crore. These cover immovable properties in Mumbai and Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra as well as an immovable property in the United Kingdom. Mumbai Police have filed chargesheets in 14 out of 17 related cases.
This is not the first time the same set of promoters, the Sai group and entities have figured in ED actions.
In June 2025 the agency provisionally attached assets worth approximately Rs 33.89 crore belonging to Jayesh Tanna, family members and associate firms (agricultural land, residential flats, commercial shops and a bungalow in Mumbai and Ahmednagar).
In July 2025 it attached a UK property (land and building) acquired in 2017 with alleged proceeds of crime amounting to GBP 2.07 lakh; the attachment was transmitted to UK authorities under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.
A separate March 2026 attachment of Rs 41.70 crore related to the Goregaon Pearl CHS project undertaken by M/s Sai Siddhi Developers quantified buyer losses in that project at Rs 47.51 crore. Earlier quantification of overall proceeds of crime linked to the broader set of projects had stood at Rs 85.75 crore.
The common thread running through the ED’s findings is the allegation that funds collected from prospective flat and shop buyers for construction and redevelopment were not applied to those purposes. Instead, according to the investigative agency, the money was diverted, projects remained incomplete or undelivered, and original society members as well as new buyers suffered financial loss. The pattern described, where collection of substantial sums under the promise of timely delivery of units in redevelopment schemes, followed by non-delivery and alleged personal enrichment matches the description the ED has repeatedly placed on record in successive press releases.
Redevelopment projects in Mumbai have long been marketed as solutions for ageing housing stock and for original tenants seeking better living conditions. Buyers, many of them middle-class families, often commit life savings or take large home loans on the strength of registered agreements, society consents and assurances of completion timelines. When those timelines collapse and funds disappear from project accounts, the consequences are concrete: EMIs continue without possession, alternative accommodation costs mount, and legal remedies stretch over years. In the Sai Group-related matters the ED has quantified the scale in crores; the human cost is measured in stalled lives.
A broader pattern has been observed across multiple homebuyer fraud investigations. Developers and builders have been accused of employing similar methods: raising funds from flat or shop buyers for proposed redevelopment or new projects, then diverting those funds through related entities or personal channels rather than deploying them for construction. The result is non-delivery, wrongful loss to buyers, original society members and investors, and, in many instances, subsequent money-laundering probes under PMLA once police FIRs establish the predicate offences. The Sai Group complaint is one recent illustration of this sequence.
Similar complaints and investigations have surfaced in other cities. In the National Capital Region, the Supreme Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to examine what it described as an “unholy nexus” between certain builders and banks/financial institutions in the context of subvention schemes and delayed or incomplete projects.
CBI has registered dozens of cases naming multiple developers and lenders; ED has opened corresponding money-laundering investigations. Large attachments have been reported in cases involving other groups where homebuyer collections ran into hundreds or thousands of crores and delivery failed. In Mumbai itself, Economic Offences Wing and police stations continue to register FIRs involving redevelopment societies, alleged sale of rehabilitation flats to third parties, forged documents and fund diversion. Individual cases range from a few crores to tens of crores; collectively they point to systemic vulnerability in the redevelopment model.
The geography of these disputes stretches from Delhi-NCR through Mumbai and other metropolitan centres. In each location the complaint is familiar: buyers pay, construction stalls or never starts in earnest, funds are alleged to have been siphoned, and recovery becomes a multi-year legal battle. Original tenants who consented to redevelopment in the hope of permanent alternative accommodation find themselves in temporary housing or paying rent while the project remains incomplete. New buyers who booked units on the strength of MOFA agreements or RERA registrations discover that registration alone does not guarantee completion or protection of their money.
Statistics available from successive ED and police actions underline the scale. In the Sai Group matters alone, successive quantifications have moved between Rs 43.73 crore, Rs 47.51 crore (Goregaon Pearl), Rs 85.75 crore (earlier broader figure) and multiple provisional attachments exceeding Rs 30 crore each, plus overseas property.
Nationally, other high-profile homebuyer-related PMLA cases have involved quantified proceeds of crime running into hundreds of crores and attachments of comparable magnitude. PropEquity data cited in 2024 indicated that roughly one in five under-construction units across major cities remained undelivered over an eight-year window, with average delays measured in years even for projects that eventually completed. These numbers do not capture the full volume of pending complaints, but they indicate that non-delivery is not an isolated phenomenon.
For the homebuyer the questions are practical and persistent. How many more projects must reach the stage of multiple FIRs, police chargesheets and ED prosecution complaints before the flow of buyer money into incomplete redevelopments is effectively interrupted? When funds are alleged to have been diverted for personal benefit, what mechanisms exist—beyond eventual attachment and trial—to restore those funds promptly to the affected buyers and society members?
Why do society consents, registered agreements and, in many cases, RERA registrations still leave buyers exposed to multi-year delays and the risk of total loss of capital? How is it that the same promoters or related entities can figure in successive FIRs across different police stations and still continue operations until a critical mass of complaints triggers central-agency action?
The ED’s latest complaint places the Sai Group matter before a specialised PMLA court. The agency has already secured attachments intended to preserve the alleged proceeds of crime. Mumbai Police have completed chargesheets in the majority of the underlying cases. Yet for the individual homebuyer who paid in 2015 or 2018 or 2020 and still has neither possession nor refund, the formal legal steps remain distant. Interest continues to accumulate on loans, rental costs continue, and the prospect of actual restitution is measured in court calendars rather than construction schedules.
The same questions apply with equal force to the larger map of redevelopment and new housing projects across Delhi, Mumbai and other cities. When a common pattern of fund diversion, non-delivery and subsequent money-laundering investigation keeps recurring, the public interest demands scrutiny of the regulatory, banking and enforcement gaps that allow the cycle to repeat. Buyers are entitled to ask whether the combination of MOFA, RERA, police investigation and PMLA attachment is sufficient to deter the practice or merely to document it after the damage is done.
The filing of the Prosecution Complaint is a procedural milestone. It does not, by itself, deliver flats, refund money or compensate years of uncertainty. Those outcomes will depend on the trial process, the fate of the attached assets, and any parallel civil or RERA remedies the affected parties may still pursue. Until then, the numbers—Rs 43.73 crore in the present complaint, successive earlier quantifications, multiple attachments, and a lengthening list of similar cases in other cities—stand as a public record of the scale of loss alleged and the persistence of the underlying complaint.
Questions in the Public Interest
How many homebuyers across Mumbai’s redevelopment projects remain without possession or refund years after payment, and what is the aggregate quantum of such unresolved claims? Why do successive investigations repeatedly uncover the same sequence—collection of buyer funds, alleged diversion, non-delivery—without earlier systemic interruption? When original society members consent to redevelopment in the expectation of permanent housing, what enforceable safeguards exist to prevent their funds and rights from being subordinated to other claims? Is the current combination of state police investigation, RERA, and central PMLA action adequate to protect the next cohort of buyers, or does the pattern itself demonstrate the need for tighter escrow, real-time fund-tracking and faster restitution mechanisms?
These are not abstract policy questions. They are the questions that every family that has paid for a flat in a redevelopment project and still waits for keys is entitled to ask. The ED’s complaint against the Sai Group promoters and entities places one more set of facts on the public record. The larger pattern of which it forms a part continues to demand answers.
