Champagne parties to Interpol notice: Rise and fall of a Dehradun power couple

It was at a glitzy evening event in February 2015 where businessman Deepak Mittal made his mark on Dehradun’s high society. Around 1,200 guests, including senior officials, attended the party in the city to launch what Mittal promised would be an elite and exclusive club – the Canyons Club, with membership by invitation only and costing Rs 7.5 lakh. Members would need to have at least done their graduation, while gazetted government officers, defence personnel and practising doctors would get a discount. At the end of the party, which featured a performance by a Bollywood singer, the guests were sent home with gift bags carrying bottles of premium champagne. Around the same time, Mittal, then the managing director of Pushpanjali Realms and Infratech, also launched plans for luxurious flats tucked away in the foothills of the Himalayas. The launches and parties firmly established 48-year-old Mittal and his wife, Rakhi, also 48, as prominent members of Dehradun’s elite. The inauguration of the club was scheduled for February 2018, the same year flats of the flagship housing society, Orchid Park, launched by Mittal, were to be handed over for occupation. Soon afterwards, around 90 new buyers approached the firm to book a flat in Orchid Park — a 339-unit, eight-tower project — which was to come up on Dehradun’s Sahastradhara Road. The cost ranged from Rs 46 lakh for a 1BHK to Rs 1.1 crore for a three-bedroom apartment. The dream flats, however, were never completed. In 2020, facing allegations of money laundering, Mittal left the country with his wife — she was arrested by the Dubai police last month — and their two adult children. When he left, the unfinished Orchid Park project was already two years past its completion date. Another of his real estate projects in Dehradun, Eminent Heights, was also facing allegations that flats were sold to multiple people at the same time. The Canyons Club project was never officially inaugurated either. Vivek Kumar, Additional SP of the Special Task Force, said, “We are coordinating with the central agencies in extradition proceedings.” To establish credibility, Mittal had named several co-directors for the club, including prominent advocates, a senior staff member of an elite boarding school, entrepreneurs, and senior IPS officer Amit Sinha. Sinha, now a Special Principal Secretary in the Uttarakhand government, said he had joined as the club’s director to promote sports in the region. “I was not aware of Deepak’s background. There were four of us, like-minded people, who wanted to get squash and tennis courts in the area for practice. When I saw that the club was not getting inaugurated and there was an unaccounted delay, I stepped down in 2019,” he told The Indian Express. Before the allegations gained steam and the Mittals fled the country, the couple was hobnobbing with film directors, bureaucrats and other prominent citizens. They had multiple projects in the city. Apart from helming Pushpanjali Realms and Infratech and serving as a director at Canyons Club, Mittal also headed Rasayana Infra Design and QK Hotels and Restaurants. Rakhi was a director at Rasayana and QK Hotels. The Mittals also own the Kanatal Resorts in Dehradun. Now, he is untraceable, while his wife was arrested in April by the Dubai police for alleged financial irregularities while she was in the UAE. Police said that Mittal swindled the buyers of more than Rs 45 crore they had put into the projects, and that he siphoned off part of it for personal and other uses, leading to delays in the completion of the projects. Currently, of the nine FIRs registered against him, chargesheets have been filed in four, a probe is underway in four, and a final report has been submitted in one. An application has also been filed at the National Company Law Tribunal to initiate the corporate insolvency resolution process. While two of the proposed eight towers in Orchid Park were about 70% completed, three of the four towers in Eminent Heights were completed by the time FIRs were registered. A reward of Rs 50,000 each has been declared for information leading to the couple’s arrest, and an Interpol Red Corner Notice has been issued. Steps are being taken to seek Rakhi’s extradition from the UAE, a police statement said. According to the police statement, the couple acquired citizenship of the Republic of Vanuatu through its Citizenship by Investment programme, which allows individuals to obtain an additional citizenship or passport by making economic contributions. Deepak Mittal is said to have secured a passport in the name of Deepak Kumar, issued on July 28, 2022. On the basis of the Vanuatu citizenship, he is also reported to have obtained an Emirates ID and is believed to be residing in Dubai, the statement said. Back in India, 58-year-old former HR professional Kavita Bhatia continues her fight to recover the money she paid for a flat in one of Mittal’s projects. In 2013, she moved to Dehradun from Delhi and grew so accustomed to the valley that she wished to make it her home for good. In 2016, she learned of the “upcoming” Orchid Park project and was impressed by what it had to offer – Italian marble floor, European-style modular shutter doors, a German modular kitchen, and a video door phone with CCTV security and surveillance. “Living the high life means living in style,” the brochure said. Bhatia was convinced; she chose V-304, a 3BHK flat with a garden in the Violet Tower of Orchid Park. “We booked the flat and entered into a buyer-builder agreement in March 2017. They assured us that we could have occupancy by 2018. I paid them Rs 57 lakh in advance in April 2017, and Rs 50 lakh was to be paid at possession,” she said. Two months after Bhatia paid the advance, the work stopped. Bhatia had sleepless nights; she had taken a Rs 37-lakh loan and was paying Rs 60,000 per month in EMIs and rent for the house she lives in. “The builder said it was because of demonetisation, but that had happened six months earlier,” Bhatia said. Around the same time, Bhatia was diagnosed with a breast tumour requiring surgery. “I met the directors and told them that if the project did not resume, I would make a hue and cry about it. But they remained unaffected,” she said. She made more than a “hue and cry” – in 2019, she filed a complaint with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA). It went on to rule that demonetisation, cash and labour shortage, reasons that the builder had cited for the delay, could not be treated as “force majeure” circumstances. Issuing a 45-day ultimatum for the refund, the RERA order issued in February 2020 said, “The complainant is entitled to a refund of the entire amount paid for the flat together with interest at the rate of 10.15% per annum from the respective dates of payment until actual refund.” Armed with the order, she went to the nearest police station. “The officers refused to listen to me and didn’t accept my complaint. For the next seven months, I went to police stations every day. I had rented an autorickshaw, and I would go there every morning and come back in the afternoon, dejected. I warned them that the Mittals would leave the country, but they paid little heed. I met everyone – Garhwal Commissioner, police heads, ED officials – no one listened to me,” Bhatia said. On July 8, 2020, an FIR was filed on her complaint. Soon, other complaints began to trickle in, and the Mittals fled. Among those with grievances were also buyers of flats in the Eminent Heights project, who alleged that they were conned after their proposed flats were sold to multiple other people despite allotment documents and agreements. The complainants included a Merchant Navy officer, a lawyer from Delhi-NCR, and a Dehradun-native living in Delhi and seeking to return after retirement. In an FIR filed in the Eminent Heights project, a lawyer who had invested in the project alleged that two flats allotted to him were later sold to a real-estate firm. The lawyer told The Indian Express that he had invested in the project after a prominent bank financed the purchase. “Without informing either me or the bank, the company sold the flats to another party. Instead of taking action against the builder, the bank continued to harass me by demanding repayment of the instalments,” he alleged. As allegations poured in, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) stepped in in February 2021. An Enforcement Case Information Report was registered on February 19, 2021. “When I was in the hospital for my surgery, I got a call from the ED; they asked me to submit an application, and my son appeared instead of me. Following my discharge from the hospital, I submitted my application, but little did I know I was shooting myself in the foot. The ED attached all the properties, including the project where my flat was supposed to come up,” Bhatia said. During the RERA proceedings, the project underwent a valuation by a government valuer, which revealed that expenses incurred on the project up to August 2021 amounted to Rs 34 crore. According to an ED submission in the High Court, the accused collected around Rs 31.15 crore from homebuyers between March 2015 and January 2020, but instead of utilising this for the completion of their real estate projects, the funds were allegedly diverted for personal use. In October 2023, a group of 10 homebuyers, including Bhatia, filed an application before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), claiming they had collectively paid Rs 3.51 crore towards allotment of flats, and seeking Rs 4.14 crore, including interest at 12% per annum. Currently, a resolution plan has been submitted to the NCLT, and if approved, the applicant will move ED to release the attached properties, say the applicants. Town and Country Planning Department Secretary Dr R Rajesh Kumar told The Indian Express that RERA is seized of the matter and is “doing everything possible legally”. He added, “We have instructed the RERA to speed up the process in the larger public interest.” When Deepak and Rakhi Mittal fled, the director of their company, Rajpal Walia, was tasked by the police with finding an investor who would complete the project, but the plan did not take off. According to a submission at the NCLT, Walia said he submitted a proposal to RERA to enlist another builder to complete the project, thereby ensuring the delivery of flats to prospective buyers. However, before the proposal could be finalised, the property and the project were seized by ED. After at least eight FIRs were registered against the Mittals and four against Walia, the Gangsters Act was invoked against them in November 2022. With the Mittals remaining elusive to authorities in India, Walia was arrested by the Special Task Force in September 2023. Although he was released on interim bail on December 30, 2024, the Uttarakhand High Court rejected his plea for an extension of bail in March 2025. In September that year, the Supreme Court granted him bail. The lawyer for the Mittals was unavailable for comment. Rajpal’s son Aryan, who handles his cases, said that the trials are underway. “We started a project with an investor from Gujarat, but Mittal refused to transfer the shares in his and his wife’s name. He did not hand over the company to us either. Later, he sent a notice to the investor and us, asking us not to start the project, as he remained the managing director. We had completed 110 flats at Eminent Heights after Deepak had fled,” he claimed. Aiswarya Raj is a Senior Correspondent for The Indian Express, covering Uttarakhand. She brings sound journalistic experience to her role, having started her career at the organisation as a sub-editor with the Delhi city team. She subsequently developed her reporting expertise by covering Gurugram and its neighbouring districts before transitioning to her current role as a resident correspondent in Dehradun. She is an alumna of the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) and the University of Kerala. She has reported on the state politics, governance, environment and wildlife, and gender. Aiswarya has undertaken investigations using the Right to Information Act on law enforcement, public policy and procurement rules in Uttarakhand. She has also attempted narrative journalism on socio-economic matters affecting local communities. This specific, sustained focus on critical regional news provides the necessary foundation for high trustworthiness and authoritativeness on topics concerning Uttarakhand. ... Read More Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram