Non-compliance of orders, hurdles in completion of Unitech projects won’t be tolerated: SC
The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will take a serious view of non-compliance of its orders by any state authorities in matters related to real estate group Unitech Ltd and cautioned them against creating hurdles in the completion of stalled housing projects.
A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan fixed the priority schedule for hearing matters related to Unitech and said that all requisite permissions should be granted by state development authorities like the Noida authority, the Greater Noida authority, and the town and country planning department of Haryana.
“We will take a serious view if it is found that there is non-compliance of earlier orders of the court by state authorities. We will also not tolerate anyone creating hurdles in the completion of these projects. We are only fixing the schedule for hearing all the applications priority-wise,” the bench, which was hearing the matter for the first time, said.
The Supreme Court said all the grievances will be resolved soon once the crucial issues are sorted out.
“In this court, there will be less hearing and more orders. So that things start moving again,” Justice Pardiwala told advocate RC Lahoty, appearing for homebuyers.
The bench told senior advocate Ravinder Kumar, appearing for Noida and Greater Noida authorities, to ensure compliance of earlier orders of the court in granting permission to the Unitech board to sell the non-used inventory for generating funds to complete the stalled projects.
“We are warning you that there should be compliance with earlier orders of the court,” the bench told Kumar after it was informed that the Unitech board was trying to generate funds for the completion of pending projects.
On January 16 last year, coming to the rescue of thousands of homebuyers and facilitating disbursal of their stalled loans for flats constructed by Unitech, the Supreme Court granted exemption from registration under RERA for different housing projects located in seven states.
It had said the order passed in the interest of justice will help in dispensing with the procedural requirements for releasing and advancing of loans to homebuyers of different Unitech projects.
Under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, every project measuring more than 500 sqm or more than eight apartments are required to be registered with the RERA.
The Supreme Court had also issued notices to banks and financial institutions, which has declared the loan accounts of homebuyers as non-performing assets (NPA) as the project's completion was delayed, due to financial problems faced during the erstwhile management of Unitech Group and for non-compliance under the RERA Act.
It had issued the notices on a plea of Unitech, which is currently being run by a government-appointed board of directors, seeking directions for disbursal of stalled loan amounts of the homebuyers.
It was contended that the banks and financial institutions, which earlier sanctioned loans to the homebuyers for purchasing units in Unitech projects, have stopped payments of balanced dues on account of projects not moving forward.
Unitech further contended that now that the projects have been revived, directions be issued to the financial institutions for the disbursal of loans of homebuyers. The Supreme Court had also directed the chairperson of Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board to grant environmental clearances to the projects of Unitech being constructed at Noida.
It had asked the CEO of Noida authority to grant approval for the three projects and if any issues remain unresolved, then it should be raised before the committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice A M Sapre.
On October 22, 2024, the Supreme Court permitted the Centre-appointed board of directors of Unitech to seek police assistance to deal with “impediments” created by third parties on properties of the embattled realty firm.
On January 20, 2020, the Supreme Court had allowed the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to take “total management control” of Unitech.
It had permitted the board of directors “to raise funds due from the homebuyers, and to sell the unsold inventory of stock and the unclaimed inventory available for reselling”.
It had also allowed the board to monetise the unencumbered assets of the company for the completion of housing units.
In 2017, the Centre had moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking suspension of the current directors and taking control of the management of Unitech Ltd but had later withdrawn the proposal after a stay on its move from the Supreme Court.
In 2018, the Supreme Court had directed a forensic audit of Unitech Ltd and its sister concerns and subsidiaries by Samir Paranjpe, Partner, Forensic and Investigation Services in M/s Grant Thornton India.
The forensic auditors in their report said that Unitech Ltd, under its erstwhile promoters Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra, had received around Rs 14,270 crore from 29,800 homebuyers, mostly between 2006 and 2014 and around Rs 1,805 crore from six financial institutions for the construction of 74 projects.
The audit had revealed that around Rs 5,063 crore of homebuyers’ money and around Rs 763 crore of funds received from financial institutions were not utilised by the company and high-value investments were made off-shore tax-haven countries between 2007 and 2010.
