Cheating by building contractor

Sairam@07 (Querist) 10 October 2019 This query is : Resolved
Dear Respected Professionals,

I hereby request you to suggest me in the following case:

Myself and my husband both are working and recently one year back we have purchased land in Bengaluru. with bank loan we have started constructing independent house. meanwhile during the search of a servant maid, one of the known person to my husband has approached us introducing himself as contractor building the houses and have experience and labour with him. in order to obtain the contract from us he has engaged his wife to take care of my kid and influenced us emotionally and got the contract without any agreement execution. before granting the work to him, we have clearly instructed him that the construction work has to be completed by oct-2018 as we have tight financial plan with loan. he agreed and commenced work. in good relationship with him, we have transferred 2 lakhs to him to his bank account. for two months the work went well. after two months the labour at site stopped working when enquired told us that they are not getting their payment regularly from the contractor and in between when inspected the sight the labour were less and are not coming on time. hence, we brought the same to the notice of the contractor who has informed us that he has paid advances to all. when enquired deeply, we came to know that the contractor has not paid wages to the masons and has given the amount on interest to them. then we have decided not to transfer the amount directly to the contractor and started paying wages to the labour directly. at certain point, my parents were hospitalised and we have stopped the work for one month as we have gone to home town. later the work was resumed and was going on very slowly. we have demanded him to engage more workers to complete the same at the earliest possible as the house warming date is approaching. in reality, the contractor had no labour with him and cheated us. then we have clearly informed him that if he is unable to engage labour, then we will look after another for completion of the building as we have a loan burden and emi payment monthly. then the contractor has started spreading messages that we will not pay amount in time and threatened the local people to work with us. therefore, our building was stopped in between. he even stopped coming to my site. we engaged few other contract people and finished the basic structure and shifted into the same in order to subsidise our financial burden. recently the contractor has approached with few local people and threatened us. how to proceed against him for incompletion of the work and for threatening us. we even have approached police but of no use as they have influence.

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PARDEEP KUMAR (Expert) 11 October 2019
Lodge a police complaint, if they don't act, complain to higher police authorities, if they too don't, file an application under section 156(3) of Cr.PC. complain to local labour department. File suit for recovery etc. There is a lot which you can do. But it would be time and money consuming.

Dr J C Vashista (Expert) 11 October 2019
It would be better to consult a local prudent lawyer with relevant records for appreciaition of facts, guidance and proceeding.