Sunny Deol bungalow auction row: Jairam Ramesh questions bank’s U-turn, asks who is behind ‘technical reasons’

The e-auction of the bungalow of Bollywood actor and BJP MP Sunny Deol took a political turn after Congress leader Jairam Ramesh questioned the bank’s U-turn – the withdrawal of the auction on Monday. 

“Yesterday afternoon the nation got to know that Bank of Baroda had put up the Juhu residence of BJP MP Sunny Deol for e-auction since he has not paid up Rs 56 crore owed to the Bank. This morning, in less than 24 hours, the nation has got to know that the Bank of Baroda has withdrawn the auction notice due to ‘technical reasons’ Wonder who triggered these ‘technical reasons?,” Ramesh posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Earlier, in a surprise move, the Bank of Baroda changed its decision and withdrew the actor’s villa in Juhu, Mumbai from the auction. 

Auction to recover Rs 56 crore

 State-owned Bank of Baroda has put on the block a property owned by actor and sitting BJP Member of Parliament Sunny Deol to recover Rs 56 crore through an e-auction to be held on August 25.

The Gurdaspur MP, whose latest flick Gaddar 2 is a box office success having already grossed over Rs 300 crore since the release last week, has been in default on a Rs 55.99 crore loan from the bank and interest and penalty, since December 2022, the second largest state-owned lender said in a public tender on Sunday.

The bank, which has attached the property, Sunny Villa located on the Gandhigram Road in the tony Juhu area of the megapolis, has fixed the reserve price for the auction at Rs 51.43 crore and an earnest money deposit of Rs 5.14 crore.

Apart from the Sunny Villa, the 599.44 square metre property also houses Sunny Sounds, which is owned by the Deols, and is the corporate guarantor to the loan, while his actor-politician father Dharmendra is the personal guarantor of the debt, according to the auction notice.

A bank spokesperson did not offer any other details to PTI when contacted such as when and how much was the loan availed of by the actor and what is the other guarantee it has for the loan as the value of the property is lower than the outstanding the borrower owes to the bank.

The tender notice further said the Deols still have the option of clearing the dues to the bank to prevent the auction to be carried out under the provisions of the Sarfaesi Act of 2002.

The actor is officially known as Ajay Singh Dharmendra Deol and has been representing the ruling BJP from the Punjab seat since 2019 when he won the seat with a landslide margin defeating the then Congress member Sunil Jhakar. The seat for long was represented by another actor Vinod Khanna for the Congress.

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