Bank of Baroda Withdraws Auction Notice for BJP MP, Actor Sunny Deol’s House in Mumbai
New Delhi: A day after it was reported that BJP MP Sunny Deol has received a notice from public sector bank Bank of Baroda that it will auctioning his villa in Mumbai to recover dues amounting to nearly Rs 56 crore, the bank said the auction notice has been withdrawn.
In a notice published in newspapers on Saturday, August 19, 2023, the bank says said the villa will be e-auctioned on September 25. Deol, whose real name is Ajay Singh Dharmendra Deol, who is the borrower and guarantor of the loan, has allegedly failed to repay the amount on time.
His father, Dharmendra, is also an ex-BJP MP. His father’s wife Hema Malini is the BJP MP from Mathura for two terms now and was a Rajya Sabha MP before that.
Banks are known to auction properties to recover the amount of loans which turn into NPAs or non-performing assets, if there is no repayment, either by way of principal or interest for 90 days.
"The loan was taken for the purpose of film financing in 2016, and it is an NPA since last year December 2022," Moneycontrol cites a person familiar with the matter as saying.
Business Today reports that the bank has kept the reserve price the for house, named 'Sunny Villa', at Rs 51.43 crore.
However, on Monday, the Bank of Baroda released a statement saying it was withdrawing the auction notice on Deol's house for "technical reasons". "Corrigendum to e-auction notice with regards to sale auction notice in respect of Mr Ajay Singh Deol alias Mr Sunny Deol stands withdrawn due to technical reasons," NDTV quoted the bank as saying.
Deol is a BJP MP from Gurdaspur, though the records show he has only asked one question in parliament 12 sessions so far. Deol had defeated the Congress’s Sunil Jakhar in 2019. Jakhar is now with the BJP, and reports say he is being considered by the BJP to stand from Gurdaspur this time.
PRS Legislative research records that Deol has not participated in a single debate, as opposed to the national average of 42.7 debates. His constituency also was known to have posters about a gumshuda or Missing MP put up. Deol didn’t even turn up to Parliament during the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha and The Times of India reported he was busy promoting his latest film, Gadar 2, at the time. This, despite there being a whip issued by the ruling BJP to be present.
Film critic Taran Adarsh has praised Gadar 2’s success at the box office, terming it a box office 'monster'. Collections are said to have crossed Rs 300 crore.
The villa, according to The Free Press Journal, is located at Gandhigram Road in Juhu, and also houses Sunny Super Sound, which is a post-production studio. According to Bollywood Hungama, after paying for it at the auction, the future buyer “will only get the symbolic possession of the property. Sunny Deol can operate his business from Sunny Villa” until the district magistrate approves of handing the physical possession to the buyer.
Note: This article was originally published on August 20, 2023 and republished on August 21, 2023 with the update that the auction notice has been withdrawn.
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