Apex court orders sealing of nine Amrapali properties
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered sealing of nine properties of real estate firm Amrapali — seven in Noida, Greater Noida and two in Rajgir and Buxar in Bihar — after three company directors, who are in police custody, told the court that documents related to group’s 46 firms were stored there.
The Noida police began sealing the premises on Wednesday.
A bench of justices Arun Misra and UU Lalit issued the order at an urgent hearing that was held post lunch following a request by the group’s advocate. On Tuesday, the court had sent three directors of Amrapali group to police custody until the documents were seized and handed over to the court-appointed forensic auditors. The directors — Anil Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar — were taken into custody from within the court premises by the Tilak Marg police.
Issuing specific directions to the police of the areas concerned, the bench said once the sealing is done keys of the premises have to be handed over to the top court registry to ensure forensic auditors access the documents.
After the directors gave an undertaking that the documents were not kept at any other place except the nine properties, the court warned them of serious consequences if their information was found to be incorrect. It further said that only the courtappointed forensic auditors and their authorised representatives can enter the premises, which are to be sealed.
The court also said that the directors be kept at police station and not in the lock-up till the seven premises in Noida and Greater Noida are sealed. However, the request by the directors to release them was turned down, with the bench saying it will give appropriate orders on Thursday.
On Tuesday, the directors were taken into police custody as the two Sc-appointed auditors told the court that they have not yet received all the documents as ordered on September 12 and 26. The bench had noted that as per the two auditors, documents of only two out of 46 firms — Amrapali Zodiac and Amrapali Princely Estates — were handed over to them despite court’s order to provide all documents. The court was forced to call the police after the directors failed to comply with its directives and said they will remain in custody until the documents were recovered.
“We are constrained to observe that it is not only deliberate non-compliance of the order but effort is being made to fritter away the documents in utter violation of the order passed by this court. No justification could be pointed out by the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Amrapali Group of Companies for not complying with orders of the court,” the SC said.
The bench added: “In the circumstances, since it is necessary to hand over the documents to the forensic auditors, considering the non-compliance evident on record, we find that there is no other way except to direct the police to seize all the documents and to hand over the documents to the forensic auditors after seizing them from the possession of 46 companies and their director.”
Shiv Priya, one of t he Amrapali directors, said: “We are getting our offices sealed along with the police, as per the court order.”