The Supreme Court made it clear on April 29 that its objective was to ensure that 22,000 homebuyers of the ailing Unitech Ltd got their dream homes and asked the new Centre-appointed board of the real estate group, banks and financial institutions to give suggestions for an amicable resolution of the long-pending dispute.
A bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan also asked the counsel for the homebuyers and the land-owning agencies to furnish a two-page note giving suggestions to it within a week.
Around 22,000 homebuyers have been waiting for houses booked with Unitech for several years. A government-appointed board has since taken over the management of the real estate firm.
On Wednesday, Additional Solicitor General N Venkataraman, appearing for the Unitech board of directors, referred to the financial difficulties and the roadblocks faced by the board.
The law officer said that the present board be allowed to withdraw and let a new board take over the affairs of the firm and deal with pressing issues, including the delivery of nearly 22,000 dwelling units to homebuyers.
“The object is to give homes to homebuyers,” the bench said, adding that some kind of amicable solution has to be found. Besides three asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), the bench asked seven banks and financial institutions to suggest measures to deal with the impasse.
It referred to the fact that as of now, the total outstanding against the company is ₹14,129.85 crore.
During the hearing, the bench asked where the monies deposited by the homebuyers had gone.
The law officer said the former promoters of the firm parked the money in tax-haven countries.
The bench said it had thought of a solution and listed the plea after a week to pass some orders in the case that has been pending since 2016.
Earlier, the bench said it would take a serious view of non-compliance of its orders by any state authorities in matters related to the real estate group and cautioned them against creating hurdles in the completion of the stalled housing projects.
On January 16 last year, coming to the rescue of thousands of homebuyers and facilitating disbursal of their stalled loans for flats constructed by Unitech, the top court granted exemption from registration under the RERA for different housing projects located in seven states.
It had said the order passed in the interest of justice would help in dispensing with the procedural requirements for releasing and advancing of loans to homebuyers of different Unitech projects.
Under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, every project measuring more than 500 sqm or more than eight apartments must be registered with the RERA.
The top court had also issued notices to banks and financial institutions, which has declared the loan accounts of homebuyers as non-performing assets (NPA) as the projects’ completion was delayed, due to financial problems faced during the erstwhile management of Unitech Group and for non-compliance under the RERA Act.
It had issued the notices on a plea by Unitech, seeking directions for disbursal of stalled loan amounts of the homebuyers.
It was contended that the banks and financial institutions, which earlier sanctioned loans to the homebuyers for purchasing units in Unitech projects, had stopped payments of the balance dues on account of projects not moving forward.
Unitech further contended that now that the projects had been revived, directions be issued to the financial institutions for disbursal of loans of homebuyers.
On October 22, 2024, the top court permitted the Centre-appointed board of directors of Unitech to seek police assistance to deal with “impediments” created by third parties on properties of the embattled realty firm.
On January 20, 2020, the top court had allowed the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to take “total management control” of Unitech.
It had permitted the board of directors “to raise funds due from the homebuyers, and to sell the unsold inventory of stock and the unclaimed inventory available for reselling”.
It had also allowed the board to monetise the unencumbered assets of the company for completion of housing units.
In 2017, the Centre had moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking suspension of the current directors and taking control of the management of Unitech Ltd but had later withdrawn the proposal after a stay on its move from the top court.
In 2018, the apex court had directed a forensic audit of Unitech Ltd and its sister concerns and subsidiaries by Samir Paranjpe, Partner, Forensic and Investigation Services in M/s Grant Thornton India.
The forensic audit report said Unitech under its erstwhile promoters Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra had received around ₹14,270 crore from 29,800 homebuyers, mostly between 2006 and 2014, and around ₹1,805 crore from six financial institutions for the construction of 74 projects.
The audit said that around ₹5,063 crore of homebuyers’ money and around ₹763 crore of funds received from financial institutions were not utilised by the company and high-value investments were made in tax-haven countries between 2007 and 2010.