Sunny Deol's Juhu villa auction: Bank of Baroda issues clarification on why auction was called off

A day after putting out a public notice to auction a villa owned by actor and sitting BJP Member of Parliament Sunny Deol to recover ₹56 crore dues, Bank of Baroda on Monday said the process is withdrawn due to technical reasons.

The Bank of Baroda in a statement said that first, the total dues did not specify the exact quantum of dues to be recovered.

Secondly, the sale notice was based on a symbolic possession of the property as per Rule 8(6) of The Security Interest (Enforcement) Rules 2002.

An application has been made for physical possession by the Bank with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on 01st August’2023, which is pending for permission.

Since the unit is running as conveyed to us by the borrower, sale action will be initiated as per the provisions of the SARFAESI Act, once the physical possession is taken.

Sunny Deol, whose latest movie Gadar 2 is a box office success having already grossed over ₹300 crore since the release last week, has been in default on a ₹55.99 crore loan from the bank, interest and penalty, since December 2022.

As per Sunday's notice, the bank, which has attached the property, had fixed the reserve price for the auction at ₹51.43 crore and an earnest money deposit of ₹5.14 crore.

Apart from 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 Sunny's actor-politician father Dharmendra is the personal guarantor of the debt, according to the auction notice.

The notice had further said the Deols had the option of clearing the dues of the bank to prevent the auction, under the provisions of the Sarfaesi Act 2002.

Sunny Deol has been representing BJP from the Gurdaspur seat of Punjab 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.