Macrotech Developers alleges document fabrication by House of Abhinandan Lodha

Real estate developer Macrotech Developers has accused House of Abhinandan Lodha (HoAL) of fabricating board resolutions, permanent account numbers and forging signatures to mislead customers into believing they were buying properties from Macrotech, which sells residences under the ‘Lodha’ brand.

Currently both the companies are involved in a trademark dispute in the courts, where Macrotech has filed a petition barring HoAL from using the ‘Lodha’ name to sell its properties. The dispute is being mediated by former Supreme Court Justice RV Raveendran.

In an exchange filing today, Macrotech, referring to the suit filed in the court against HoAL for infringing on its Intellectual Property Rights, said that it had come to their knowledge that certain entities of HoAL used “purported board resolutions” supposedly passed by Macrotech “containing a no objection for the use of the company’s trademarks and filed the same with government authorities.”

Macrotech said that no board meeting has been held by it on the date that the board resolution shows, and its board had never considered or approved such board resolutions in any of its meetings whatsoever.

The company has also alleged that to support its application, HoAL has attached the PAN Card of an independent director. “On comparison against the actual PAN Card of the said independent director, it is seen that his signature and photograph have been changed.” It said the independent director had also confirmed that he had not certified any such board resolution, while neither the signatures nor the PAN Card attached belonged to him.

The company said its board met today to go through the documents and “taken serious cognisance of the conspiracy to use fabricated documents in order to misuse the company’s (Macrotech’ s) goodwill, brand, and registered trademark.”

It also said it had formed a special committee of directors to look into it and take “appropriate legal action.”

Responding to the exchange filing and the allegations in it, a spokesperson for Lodha Ventures said, “We are internally looking into the matter and shall revert with our detailed response. Suffice it to state that the House of Abhinandan Lodha does not admit any of the allegations of fraud and forgery sought to be attributed to us.”

Macrotech is led by Abhishek Lodha and HoAL by his younger brother Abhinandan Lodha.

The mediation process, originally supposed to be completed within 4-5 weeks, was extended for three more weeks, earlier this month.