The Supreme Court on Wednesday threatened to render homeless the top bosses of real estate major Amrapali Group after the company came to the court with a proposal to raise a mere Rs 400 crore against its Rs 4,000-crore liability.
Accusing the company of “playing smart”, the Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU lalit warned the group’s directors to mend their ways and gave 15 days time for the realty firm to submit a valuation report of movable and immovable properties of its Managing Director and Directors and their bank accounts. Along with it, the court sought details of companies that were looking after the maintenance of Amrapali projects and the funds they have collected and disbursed so far.
“Don’t act smart. You are giving us a proposal of just Rs 400 crore against the expected cost of Rs 4,000 crore for completion of pending projects. We will sell each and every property of yours and render you homeless. You have delayed giving possession of flats to homebuyers. Just as you made them wait, you (company directors) will have to look out for a house. The day is not far when you will compel us to sell your properties,” the Bench observed.
Representing the company, its lawyer Gaurav Bhatia pointed out that his clients intended to raise Rs 6,119 crore, of which Rs 5,112 crore were to be collected as dues from homebuyers and the remaining from its unsold inventories. The Bench restrained the group from collecting money from the homebuyers and reminded them that it was the firm that should pay for delaying possession of flats.
The Bench observed that property worth Rs 50 lakh in 2008 would now be valued at Rs 2.5 crore and those who invested Rs 1 crore would now be worth Rs 4 crore. Bhatia submitted that at present, the sale of commercial properties of the company could fetch only Rs 406 crore. But the petitioners countered by producing a list of properties of the company, which included shopping malls at Bareilly (UP) and Purnea (Bihar), hotels and resorts in Muzaffarpur (Bihar), Deoghar (Jharkhand) and Udaipur (Rajasthan).
“We have already given the pending projects to NBCC and we will not go back on that decision. You (Amrapali) have to submit a concrete proposal for selling of the properties in order to raise funds for NBCC,” the Bench said. It asked the real estate firm to file a concrete proposal by August 14 for raising Rs 4,000 crore by way of sale of its properties for completion of its pending projects by the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC).
The Bench asked the Group to furnish details of all unencumbered properties of the company, a comprehensive list of firms engaged in maintenance work of Amrapali projects, the money collected towards electricity and maintenance charges from residents and the amount spent so far. It directed restoration of power supply to two of the group’s projects — Zodiac and Silicon City at Noida.