G Square. This name has become ubiquitous in Tamil Nadu today. Be it on billboards along East Coast Road or as advertisements while scrolling through Instagram, the name G Square just pops up everywhere.
And that’s precisely why it is in news.
G Square Realtors Private Limited is a real estate company which aggregates land parcels to set up residential plots and commercial complexes. It also sells these land parcels to big corporates to set up IT parks. G Square has gobbled up the real estate spaces spanning across Chennai, Trichy, Coimbatore and Hosur with several luxury housing projects to its name. No other real-estate firm has seen such meteoric rise in a short span of time.
This has led to allegations that the company has seen this astounding rise owing to its close ties with the family members of DMK chief MK Stalin.
Initially, these allegations didn’t seem to have much credibility. But the way in which the state machinery has swung into action on G Square’s complaint alleging conspiracy, lends much credence to the allegations.
The G Square – DMK Connect
Though the brand G Square has been in existence since 2012, it wasn’t very much active in its initial years. In fact, its latest website was registered only in 2021, just a month after the DMK came to power.
Website registration details of www.gsquarehousing.com
It was only after 2017 that more than 20 organizations were registered with the name of G Square and most of these organizations have been registered under the name of Rangaswamy Ramajayam, Sreejith and Sreekala. These 20+ organizations include G Square Housing, G Square Zamin Properties LLP, G Square Developers and so on.
In order to understand the connect between DMK and G Square, a few dots need to be connected.
Dot 1
According to G Square Group’s website, there are three persons in the “Management Team” – Eshwar N, Chief Executive Officer; Purushotham Kumar, Chief Compliance Officer; and Sreejith K, Chief Operations Officer.
In most of the entities in the name of G Square, it is Sreejith, Sreekala and Ramajayam who are ‘Designated Partners’.
Now here is where things get a little interesting.
The address in which these entities of G Square are registered is an apartment in Harrington Road, Chennai. The same address has been used as registered address for over 20 entities.
The address in which the rental agreement has been signed by Sreejith for registering these entities is the address of Anbuchelvan, the son of late DMK leader Anbazhagan.
Dot 2
DMK MLA from Anna Nagar M.K. Mohan has given a loan of ₹17.73 lakhs to Ramajayam, ₹17.49 lakhs to Sreejith and ₹18.94 lakhs to Sreekala.
Dot 3
There is one more connection to the DMK. Rangaswamy Ramajayam, who runs over 40 organizations including over 20 G Square entities, also runs a firm called Lotus Horizon Developers LLP in which one Prashanth Reddy is the other partner.
This Prashanth Reddy runs one of the largest real estate group in Telangana called Mahidhara which has taken most of the government contracts for building bridges, roads, etc. Mahidhara also has projects in Chennai in localities like Oragadam, Sriperumbudur, and off Poonamallee. If one were to ask the people living in these localities, pat would come the answer that it all belongs to those close to the DMK family.
But what is worth mentioning is that Prasanth Reddy also runs a company called Lotus Bhevin Developers LLP in which DMK chief MK Stalin’s son-in-law Sabarisan exists as the other partner.
Okay. So, the partners of G Square have some kind of business ties with a member of the DMK’s first family. Big Deal! Is that a crime? No.
This is where understanding Dot 4 becomes crucial.
Dot 4
One of the biggest projects of G Square is the ‘G Square City’ in Coimbatore spread across 127 acres with a total cost of around ₹600 crores.
The deed for this project states that four entities namely – Deep Jyoti Projects Private Limited, Crocus Builders Private Limited, Gems Buildcon Private Limited, Emaar India Limited – have given the power of attorney to G Square to sell the land.
And there is a pattern to how these land parcels from these entities came under the control of G Square.
Around 36.9 acres of land have come through Deep Jyoti Projects to G Square. The encumbrance certificate of these plots reveals that Deep Jyoti Projects had purchased them on 22 May 2006, leased them out to Emaar India on 12 March 2008 which was later cancelled on 20 May 2019. Deep Jyoti Projects later gave the power of attorney to Emaar India 6 June 2019 who later converts the land parcels into saleable plots. Finally Emaar India gave the power of attorney to sell the land to G Square on 9 February 2022.
Similarly, Crocus Builders having 31.8 acres had purchased the land parcels on 26 May 2006, leased them to Emaar India on 12 March 2008 which was cancelled on 20 May 2019. Later, the same Emaar India is given the power of attorney on 6 June 2019 who later gives the power of attorney to G Square on 9 February 2022.
Land measuring 56.2 acres from Gems Buildcon have ended up at the doorsteps of G Square in the exact same way around the same dates.
Now here is the catch.
All the four companies – Deep Jyoti Projects Private Limited, Crocus Builders Private Limited, Gems Buildcon Private Limited, Emaar india – have the same address which is at Saket, New Delhi.
And what is even more astonishing is that there is only one person behind the transfer of power of attorney between these entities.
One person transferring power of attorneys from one entity to another all of which function out of the same address is good enough reason to red flag.
So, where is the DMK connect here?
Now Emaar India is promoted by the Dubai-based Emaar Properties. Emaar India is embroiled in a number of scams. In 2021, Emaar officials had fraudulently forged board resolutions of subsidiary companies of another company named MGF Development to usurp land owned by the latter’s subsidiaries. In another case, Emaar-MGF (EMLL) had allegedly created 10 companies in the name of its employees on directions of its managing director to usurp prime land being developed near Hyderabad. Emaar is also accused of money laundering.
It is the CEO of this company called Emaar that CM Stalin had recently met in Dubai, a country that is now becoming the global hotspot for money laundering.
CM Stalin in Dubai
Remember that before CM Stalin went to Dubai, it was his son-in-law Sabarisan who had gone much earlier to meet with various business leaders in the gulf country.
G Square, The Real Estate Behemoth
G Square has 10 projects along East Coast Road, 8 projects along Old Mahabalipuram Road, and several other prime localities in Chennai. There are 7 projects in Coimbatore, 2 in Trichy and 1 in Hosur. The total value of all the G Square projects across Tamil Nadu amounts to around ₹6000 crores. The natural questions that comes to anybody’s mind is – how did G Square manage to acquire so many plots worth several thousand crores under its name? How is it that the company is seeing so much business in such short span of time especially after the DMK’s rise to power?
The land parcels held by G Square in different places do not seem like the company invested money and purchased these plots recently. To understand how these things work, it is important to understand the nexus between politicians and the real estate business.
Consider a case where a politician belonging to a party named ‘D’ who has properties registered in the name of his benami is wanting to sell a few of the properties to raise money for himself. Usually, a real estate agent helps in finding interested parties. However, finding an interested party is an arduous task in itself. When a big real estate baron comes into the picture, it becomes easy and everybody is happy.
Consider another case in which a Minister is to take a bribe to grant approval for a project. The Enforcement Directorate or the Central Bureau of Investigation will sniff if the transaction is made within India. So, to stay away from the radar of law enforcement agencies, a deal is struck with a company abroad which later routes the money into the country in the form of ‘investments’.
The land parcels held by G Square could be that of those belonging to the land mafia or it could be a property purchased by a politician with ill-gotten money, or these land parcels could itself be mired under disputes. We don’t know. But once these plots are sold to the common public, these lands become relieved of its troubles. If there is black-money involved in the transaction of these lands, it become white. In essence, it becomes a classic case of money/land laundering.
It is not being implied that G Square has purchased plots this way or acting as agents of money/land laundering purpose. But the agressiveness with which G Square is going about its business does create suspicion. Even a layman can sense that there is something fishy.
How The Wheels Of The Govt Are Moving Fast For G Square
Not just G Square even the government machinery in Tamil Nadu is moving aggressively for G Square. Junior Vikatan, a bi-weekly Tamil magazine in its January 23, 2022 issue had carried an article in which it was written that ‘a company having an English letter in its name’ has started construction work worth over ₹1,000 crore in the last six months.
The owner of the particular company has apparently told all the government officials that ‘his company is close to Sabarisan’, Junior Vikatan noted.
The article alleged that the said company is also throwing around its weight in getting approval for its projects from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP). Approvals which takes months for other companies are being done in days for the said company. Other real estate companies are also strong-armed to strike deals with the said company and those who refuse to yield are harassed with further delays in getting approval for their projects.
And for this article, the Tamil Nadu Police had registered an FIR against Vikatan’s directors based on a complaint by G Square.
Not just Vikatan, even YouTuber Maridhas who had recently put a video on G Square along with political commentator ‘Savukku’ Shankar were included in the FIR as the complaint stated that a Chennai-based businessman named Kevin, along with Vikatan, Maridhas and ‘Savukku’ Shankar, conspired to tarnish the reputation of the founder and managing director Ramajayam.
While Vikatan has denied any ties with Kevin, the magazine has said that when the real estate company sent them a defamation notice on on March 3, 2022, they had asked for Kevin’s details, but received no response.
Maridhas and ‘Savukku’ Shankar on the other hand have no relation what so ever with the case. Maridhas has released two videos on the matter and Savukku Shankar has been talking about the case on Twitter.
But look at how the Tamil Nadu police has had no qualms in including two unrelated individuals in a case just for talking about it on social media.
Who is the Tamil Nadu Police trying to protect? Under whose direction were the names of Maridhas and ‘Savukku’ Shankar included?
The Questions That Hang
Be it in getting approvals from government departments as alleged or filing cases against those talking about the company, an entire state machinery seems to swing into action on hearing the name of G Square.
Hence it becomes pertinent to raise these following questions:
1) What is the connection between G Square and the DMK family?
2) How did so much of real estate space land up at the doors of G Square?
3) Is G Square getting favours from the state government because of its close ties with the DMK family?
4) What transpired in the meeting between CM Stalin and the CEO of Emaar in Dubai?
5) Is G Square being used to launder money routing it through Dubai in the name of ‘investments’?
(This article is based on information present in the YouTube videos of Maridhas)
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The G Square Shenanigans
G Square. This name has become ubiquitous in Tamil Nadu today. Be it on billboards along East Coast Road or as advertisements while scrolling through Instagram, the name G Square just pops up everywhere.
And that’s precisely why it is in news.
G Square Realtors Private Limited is a real estate company which aggregates land parcels to set up residential plots and commercial complexes. It also sells these land parcels to big corporates to set up IT parks. G Square has gobbled up the real estate spaces spanning across Chennai, Trichy, Coimbatore and Hosur with several luxury housing projects to its name. No other real-estate firm has seen such meteoric rise in a short span of time.
This has led to allegations that the company has seen this astounding rise owing to its close ties with the family members of DMK chief MK Stalin.
Initially, these allegations didn’t seem to have much credibility. But the way in which the state machinery has swung into action on G Square’s complaint alleging conspiracy, lends much credence to the allegations.
The G Square – DMK Connect
Though the brand G Square has been in existence since 2012, it wasn’t very much active in its initial years. In fact, its latest website was registered only in 2021, just a month after the DMK came to power.
It was only after 2017 that more than 20 organizations were registered with the name of G Square and most of these organizations have been registered under the name of Rangaswamy Ramajayam, Sreejith and Sreekala. These 20+ organizations include G Square Housing, G Square Zamin Properties LLP, G Square Developers and so on.
In order to understand the connect between DMK and G Square, a few dots need to be connected.
Dot 1
According to G Square Group’s website, there are three persons in the “Management Team” – Eshwar N, Chief Executive Officer; Purushotham Kumar, Chief Compliance Officer; and Sreejith K, Chief Operations Officer.
In most of the entities in the name of G Square, it is Sreejith, Sreekala and Ramajayam who are ‘Designated Partners’.
Now here is where things get a little interesting.
The address in which these entities of G Square are registered is an apartment in Harrington Road, Chennai. The same address has been used as registered address for over 20 entities.
The address in which the rental agreement has been signed by Sreejith for registering these entities is the address of Anbuchelvan, the son of late DMK leader Anbazhagan.
Dot 2
DMK MLA from Anna Nagar M.K. Mohan has given a loan of ₹17.73 lakhs to Ramajayam, ₹17.49 lakhs to Sreejith and ₹18.94 lakhs to Sreekala.
Dot 3
There is one more connection to the DMK. Rangaswamy Ramajayam, who runs over 40 organizations including over 20 G Square entities, also runs a firm called Lotus Horizon Developers LLP in which one Prashanth Reddy is the other partner.
This Prashanth Reddy runs one of the largest real estate group in Telangana called Mahidhara which has taken most of the government contracts for building bridges, roads, etc. Mahidhara also has projects in Chennai in localities like Oragadam, Sriperumbudur, and off Poonamallee. If one were to ask the people living in these localities, pat would come the answer that it all belongs to those close to the DMK family.
But what is worth mentioning is that Prasanth Reddy also runs a company called Lotus Bhevin Developers LLP in which DMK chief MK Stalin’s son-in-law Sabarisan exists as the other partner.
Okay. So, the partners of G Square have some kind of business ties with a member of the DMK’s first family. Big Deal! Is that a crime? No.
This is where understanding Dot 4 becomes crucial.
Dot 4
One of the biggest projects of G Square is the ‘G Square City’ in Coimbatore spread across 127 acres with a total cost of around ₹600 crores.
The deed for this project states that four entities namely – Deep Jyoti Projects Private Limited, Crocus Builders Private Limited, Gems Buildcon Private Limited, Emaar India Limited – have given the power of attorney to G Square to sell the land.
And there is a pattern to how these land parcels from these entities came under the control of G Square.
Around 36.9 acres of land have come through Deep Jyoti Projects to G Square. The encumbrance certificate of these plots reveals that Deep Jyoti Projects had purchased them on 22 May 2006, leased them out to Emaar India on 12 March 2008 which was later cancelled on 20 May 2019. Deep Jyoti Projects later gave the power of attorney to Emaar India 6 June 2019 who later converts the land parcels into saleable plots. Finally Emaar India gave the power of attorney to sell the land to G Square on 9 February 2022.
Similarly, Crocus Builders having 31.8 acres had purchased the land parcels on 26 May 2006, leased them to Emaar India on 12 March 2008 which was cancelled on 20 May 2019. Later, the same Emaar India is given the power of attorney on 6 June 2019 who later gives the power of attorney to G Square on 9 February 2022.
Land measuring 56.2 acres from Gems Buildcon have ended up at the doorsteps of G Square in the exact same way around the same dates.
Now here is the catch.
All the four companies – Deep Jyoti Projects Private Limited, Crocus Builders Private Limited, Gems Buildcon Private Limited, Emaar india – have the same address which is at Saket, New Delhi.
And what is even more astonishing is that there is only one person behind the transfer of power of attorney between these entities.
One person transferring power of attorneys from one entity to another all of which function out of the same address is good enough reason to red flag.
So, where is the DMK connect here?
Now Emaar India is promoted by the Dubai-based Emaar Properties. Emaar India is embroiled in a number of scams. In 2021, Emaar officials had fraudulently forged board resolutions of subsidiary companies of another company named MGF Development to usurp land owned by the latter’s subsidiaries. In another case, Emaar-MGF (EMLL) had allegedly created 10 companies in the name of its employees on directions of its managing director to usurp prime land being developed near Hyderabad. Emaar is also accused of money laundering.
It is the CEO of this company called Emaar that CM Stalin had recently met in Dubai, a country that is now becoming the global hotspot for money laundering.
Remember that before CM Stalin went to Dubai, it was his son-in-law Sabarisan who had gone much earlier to meet with various business leaders in the gulf country.
G Square, The Real Estate Behemoth
G Square has 10 projects along East Coast Road, 8 projects along Old Mahabalipuram Road, and several other prime localities in Chennai. There are 7 projects in Coimbatore, 2 in Trichy and 1 in Hosur. The total value of all the G Square projects across Tamil Nadu amounts to around ₹6000 crores. The natural questions that comes to anybody’s mind is – how did G Square manage to acquire so many plots worth several thousand crores under its name? How is it that the company is seeing so much business in such short span of time especially after the DMK’s rise to power?
The land parcels held by G Square in different places do not seem like the company invested money and purchased these plots recently. To understand how these things work, it is important to understand the nexus between politicians and the real estate business.
Consider a case where a politician belonging to a party named ‘D’ who has properties registered in the name of his benami is wanting to sell a few of the properties to raise money for himself. Usually, a real estate agent helps in finding interested parties. However, finding an interested party is an arduous task in itself. When a big real estate baron comes into the picture, it becomes easy and everybody is happy.
Consider another case in which a Minister is to take a bribe to grant approval for a project. The Enforcement Directorate or the Central Bureau of Investigation will sniff if the transaction is made within India. So, to stay away from the radar of law enforcement agencies, a deal is struck with a company abroad which later routes the money into the country in the form of ‘investments’.
The land parcels held by G Square could be that of those belonging to the land mafia or it could be a property purchased by a politician with ill-gotten money, or these land parcels could itself be mired under disputes. We don’t know. But once these plots are sold to the common public, these lands become relieved of its troubles. If there is black-money involved in the transaction of these lands, it become white. In essence, it becomes a classic case of money/land laundering.
It is not being implied that G Square has purchased plots this way or acting as agents of money/land laundering purpose. But the agressiveness with which G Square is going about its business does create suspicion. Even a layman can sense that there is something fishy.
How The Wheels Of The Govt Are Moving Fast For G Square
Not just G Square even the government machinery in Tamil Nadu is moving aggressively for G Square. Junior Vikatan, a bi-weekly Tamil magazine in its January 23, 2022 issue had carried an article in which it was written that ‘a company having an English letter in its name’ has started construction work worth over ₹1,000 crore in the last six months.
The owner of the particular company has apparently told all the government officials that ‘his company is close to Sabarisan’, Junior Vikatan noted.
The article alleged that the said company is also throwing around its weight in getting approval for its projects from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP). Approvals which takes months for other companies are being done in days for the said company. Other real estate companies are also strong-armed to strike deals with the said company and those who refuse to yield are harassed with further delays in getting approval for their projects.
And for this article, the Tamil Nadu Police had registered an FIR against Vikatan’s directors based on a complaint by G Square.
Not just Vikatan, even YouTuber Maridhas who had recently put a video on G Square along with political commentator ‘Savukku’ Shankar were included in the FIR as the complaint stated that a Chennai-based businessman named Kevin, along with Vikatan, Maridhas and ‘Savukku’ Shankar, conspired to tarnish the reputation of the founder and managing director Ramajayam.
While Vikatan has denied any ties with Kevin, the magazine has said that when the real estate company sent them a defamation notice on on March 3, 2022, they had asked for Kevin’s details, but received no response.
Maridhas and ‘Savukku’ Shankar on the other hand have no relation what so ever with the case. Maridhas has released two videos on the matter and Savukku Shankar has been talking about the case on Twitter.
But look at how the Tamil Nadu police has had no qualms in including two unrelated individuals in a case just for talking about it on social media.
Who is the Tamil Nadu Police trying to protect? Under whose direction were the names of Maridhas and ‘Savukku’ Shankar included?
The Questions That Hang
Be it in getting approvals from government departments as alleged or filing cases against those talking about the company, an entire state machinery seems to swing into action on hearing the name of G Square.
Hence it becomes pertinent to raise these following questions:
1) What is the connection between G Square and the DMK family?
2) How did so much of real estate space land up at the doors of G Square?
3) Is G Square getting favours from the state government because of its close ties with the DMK family?
4) What transpired in the meeting between CM Stalin and the CEO of Emaar in Dubai?
5) Is G Square being used to launder money routing it through Dubai in the name of ‘investments’?
(This article is based on information present in the YouTube videos of Maridhas)
Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.