SC asks Centre to arrange funds for Amrapali projects

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the Centre a week to indicate how much funds it could provide for completion of real estate firm Amrapali’s stalled housing projects under distress fund corpus of ₹25,000 crore set up to revive construction. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that if no positive response is given by Wednesday, the court will be forced to pass orders in the exercise of its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution. Article 142 empowers the Supreme Court to pass orders for complete justice in a case before it.

The court has been monitoring the completion of the projects since July 2019 when it cancelled the firm’s registration under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act. The cancellation followed a forensic audit that found the firm’s directors were allegedly illegally diverting the homebuyers’ money. The NBCC was given the task to complete the pending projects.

A committee comprising two forensic auditors and court-appointed receiver, senior advocate R Venkatramani, was formed to carry out auctioning of Amrapali properties and to examine possible sources of funding.

Venkatramani on Thursday told the court that despite meeting the Union finance secretary, there was no progress on part of the Centre to arrange funds for the project. He is independently in talks with SBICAP, which had agreed in principle to provide ₹995 crore out of the ₹25,000 crore fund for stressed real estate projects set up by the government.

SBICAP, represented by senior advocate Harish Salve, informed the court on Thursday that certain “sticky points” on the choice of projects and mode of pricing have delayed infusion of funds and sought a week to get back with a formal proposal.