SC orders meeting between Amrapali Group, home buyers on Saturday

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered real estate major Amrapali Group and its home buyers to meet on Saturday and arrive at a consensus on the status of its various housing projects nearing completion.

A bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice U.U. Lalit said the meeting will be held on March 17 at 11 a.m. at the Supreme Court consultation room and, thereafter, a joint statement on the development of the meeting would be filed before the court.

There was an urgent need for consensus between the Amrapali Group and home buyers to identify projects that were nearing completion, mid-way and those nowhere near completion, said the bench, adding that it wants that home buyers get their flats at the earliest and refund of money is not the solution to the problem.

On February 22, the court had directed the real estate group to finish the remaining work on 19 towers in its Leisure Valley housing project in Greater Noida.

The Amrapali Group had earlier submitted a comprehensive proposal on how it planned to deliver 42,000 flats to its buyers in various projects.

Earlier, the Group, facing insolvency proceedings initiated by the creditor bank for not repaying the loans, had told the court that it was not in a position to complete the projects and hand over possession of flats to over 42,000 home-buyers in a time-bound manner, and the properties were needed to be developed with the help of co-developers.

The Amrapali Group has liabilities of about Rs 3,000 crore towards authorities and owes over Rs 1,000 crore to about 10 banks, and it needs about Rs 3,000 crore to complete its ongoing projects.

The apex court has been hearing a batch of pleas filed by home buyers who have sought quashing of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) order admitting insolvency proceedings against Amrapali Group.

Buyers belong to the low and middle-income groups and must be granted equal protection as other stakeholders -- financial and operational creditors, the home buyers' plea had said.