CJ Roy And The Real Estate Trap: A System With No Exit

A tribute that exposes the silent mechanics behind urban growth

By Titto Eapen

This is a tribute to CJ Roy , and it has to be written with an honesty that the real estate industry rarely allows itself. Not because truth is unknown within the system, but because speaking it aloud has consequences. In India’s urban economy, real estate does not operate in isolation from power. It cannot. The regulatory structure is too complex, the discretion too wide, and the exposure too public for any developer to survive on capital and compliance alone. Alignment with political authority is not an advantage in this business; it is a condition of survival.

Developers learn this early. Files do not move predictably without political cover. Enforcement is not uniform without political signalling. A project may be lawful on paper and still be paralysed in practice if it lacks the right protection. This is where money and muscle enter the picture, not as ambition, but as defence. Political association provides insulation. It does not erase scrutiny, but it manages it. It tells the system where to be careful, where to slow down, and where to look the other way. Without that shield, a developer is exposed to every pressure point at once.Over time, this relationship deepens into dependency. Sometimes the developer becomes useful to the politician, serving as a visible mascot of their own real estate empire, money laundering and land deals etc. At other times, the politician becomes useful silent partner to the developer, offering refuge from scrutiny, approval, and protection.Both arrangements are transactional and unstated, and both carry the same inherent risk. Power in politics is temporary. Land is not. When leadership changes or allegiance shifts, yesterday’s protection becomes today’s liability.

This is the phase where the fall usually begins. Old associations acquire new meanings. Transactions that were once invisible are reinterpreted through a different lens. Files that lay dormant return to life. The same system that once exercised restraint now applies pressure with renewed zeal, eager to demonstrate neutrality, diligence, or distance from the past. The developer, who aligned out of necessity rather than ideology, is left holding permanent assets in a suddenly hostile environment.Insiders know how this story branches from here. Some developers leave the country quietly, transferring assets, accepting reputational damage as the cost of physical freedom. Some retreat into low-profile existence, abandoning new projects and waiting for political cycles to turn again. Some are arrested, becoming public symbols of a clean-up that satisfies popular sentiment. And some, trapped by debt, immovable land, and relentless scrutiny, find themselves without a viable exit at all.

CJ Roy’s story must be read within this reality. His death was not the result of a single action or a sudden accusation. It was the consequence of an ecosystem where alignment is compulsory, neutrality is impossible, and re-alignment is unforgiving. When protection evaporates, pressure does not arrive gradually; it converges. Every department, every agency, every stakeholder acts independently, yet the outcome feels coordinated. The developer absorbs the entire force while the system remains blameless, each part claiming it merely followed procedure.In the end, real estate produces a dangerous illusion. It makes developers appear powerful while ensuring they are structurally vulnerable. It rewards proximity to power while guaranteeing that proximity will one day be weaponised. It offers no institutional memory, no loyalty, and no safety net when the political weather turns. Survival depends on timing, alignment, and luck  none of which are permanent assets.To remember CJ Roy honestly is to recognise this cruel equilibrium. In this business, a developer may associate with a political leader to escape scrutiny, or a political leader may use a developer as a mascot to run his own shallow real estate empire.

The arrangement works until it doesn’t. When it breaks, it breaks decisively, and the consequences are borne by the developer alone. The city moves on. The system resets. Another alignment forms elsewhere.CJ Roy’s death should not be reduced to morality or misjudgment. It should be understood as the human cost of a structure that demands allegiance, punishes re-alignment, and offers no dignified way out when the balance shifts. That is the truth his life and death reveal, and that is the truth the industry, the state, and society must confront if this cycle is ever to be broken.

CJ Roy and the Real Estate Trap: A System With No Exit