Will sell off Amrapali assets to recover costs, complete projects: SC

Top court reserves verdict on whether all pending work and land as well as management of the real estate firm should be handed over to authorities

Observing that they would proceed with the sale of each and every property of Amrapali group to recover money which would then be used to finish pending projects of the company, the Supreme Court on Friday reserved its verdict on whether all the pending work and land as well as management of the real estate firm should be handed over to the Noida and Greater Noida authorities.

A two-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit had, during the last hearing on Wednesday, hinted that it may direct the Greater Noida Authority to take the services of NBCC (India) Limited, or any other builder of repute, to complete the pending projects of the beleaguered real estate company.

“Amrapali has failed to fulfil obligation to Noida, or the homebuyers. People are residing in potentially hazardous buildings. Noida should have taken the land back from you. You go out. We will take care of the home buyers,” the two-judge Bench had observed.

Earlier, the top court had come down heavily on the Amrapali group and said that they had committed a “first-degree crime” by cheating thousands of homebuyers of their dream homes. The court had also pulled up banks and said that the financial institutions had also failed in their duty by not keeping an eye on the company’s illegal activities. The banks, the courts had said, had given loans to the company without checking if the money was used for the purpose for which it was obtained.

The observation by the top court came after the auditors submitted a report that money was diverted by the Amrapali top brass and spent mostly on houses, luxury cars and weddings and also invested in shares and mutual funds. The two-judge bench was hearing a batch of petitions filed by homebuyers who are seeking possession of around 42,000 flats booked in projects of the Amrapali group.