The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Bank of Baroda-led consortium of seven banks to effectuate disbursal of 1,500 crore by Tuesday (29th March) 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 very soon.
"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 stated.
The National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) has been entrusted by the Supreme Court with completing stalled projects of Amrapali Group.
The Supreme 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 Supreme Court at the time when an injunction was in place.
He urged the court that 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 Supreme Court had said its number one priority is to ensure that every Amrapali home buyer gets a flat.
The Supreme 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 Supreme Court was told by Venkataramani that till now over 900 crore has been paid by the home buyers as per the scheduled payment plan and more needs to be paid.
