By PTI
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Bank of Baroda-led consortium of seven banks to effectuate disbursal of Rs 1,500 crore by Tuesday for the construction of stalled real estate projects of Amrapali Group.
A bench of Justices UU Lalit and Bela M Trivedi noted that six banks — Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Punjab and Sindh Bank and UCO bank — have granted in-principle approval for disbursal of funds, while Indian Bank is expected to do so Monday evening.
“We, therefore, direct all the banks of the consortium to effectuate funds disbursal by tomorrow, so that NBCC can put the amount in use by March 31,” the bench said.
The National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) has been entrusted by the top court with completing stalled projects of Amrapali Group.
The top court also retained a direction in its earlier order of August 13, 2021 on the plea of the Reserve Bank of India regarding a blanket ban on declaration of Non-Performing Assets (NPA) accounts and said that it does not want any roadblock in the funding of stalled projects by the banks.
The bench said it would consult RBI, if required, whenever any matter comes before it.
Advocate ML Lahoty, appearing for a group of Amrapali home buyers, said that former director of the group Prem Mishra had sold flats, plots and villas even during the pendency of the matter before the top court at the time when an injunction was in place.
He urged the court that Rs 85 crore be recovered from Mishra and the unsold inventory be put to auction to generate funds for the stalled projects.
On March 21, the top court had said its number one priority is to ensure that every Amrapali home buyer gets a flat.
The top court was told by the court receiver, senior advocate R Venkataramani, that initially they had issued a list of around 8,000 flats which were not claimed by any buyer or which were booked under bogus names or were undervalued.
“Since then around 4,000 claimants came forward and we are in process of finalising their agreements. Around 4,000 flats still remain and we hope in the next two weeks or ten days more people may come forward and eventually 3,000 such flats would remain. These flats will be treated as unsold inventory and will be auctioned to generate more funds,” he had said.
The top court was told by Venkataramani that till now over Rs 900 crore has been paid by the home buyers as per the scheduled payment plan and more needs to be paid.
“Around Rs 700 crore worth of properties were sold at undervalue and we are trying to work it out with the home buyers, whom we have been able to trace. Around 300-500 cases of multiple allotments were spotted, whose verification is underway,” he had said.
On March 7, the top court was told that Bank of Baroda which is leading the six-bank consortium has infused Rs 300 crore.
The top court had directed the other banks of the consortium to release the balance amount of Rs 1,200 crore before the next date of hearing.
On February 21, the NBCC assured the top court that the construction of stalled projects of Amrapali Group will be of good quality and independent experts will assess the safety and quality standards.
The NBCC had earlier told the top court that at present, 10 projects in Noida and 12 projects in Greater Noida are under execution involving 45,957 units with a sanctioned project cost of Rs 8,025.78 crore.
The apex court in its July 23, 2019 verdict had cracked the whip on errant builders for breaching the trust reposed by home buyers and ordered the cancellation of the registration of Amrapali Group under real estate law RERA and ousted it from prime properties in the NCR by nixing the land leases.
Former group directors of Amrapali — Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar — are in prison on the top court’s order.
The court had directed a probe by the Enforcement Directorate into alleged money laundering by realtors, providing relief to over 42,000 home buyers of Amrapali Group with the verdict.
The top court, which is trying to bring in funds for the stalled projects, had then directed the state-run NBCC to complete the stalled projects of Amrapali Group.
