16,300 BUYERS’ TEARS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN BUILDER’S: SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court rejected on Thursday the interim bail plea of Sanjay Chandra, the managing director of real estate developer Unitech, giving prominence to homebuyers’ tears over the jailed builder’s freedom.

Chandra was also warned that a court receiver will be appointed and Unitech projects auctioned if the company fails to deliver flats or pay those buyers seeking a refund.

“We have to balance between the tears of 16,300 homebuyers and one person’s tears and freedom,” a bench led by Chief justice Dipak Mishra said, rejecting Chandra’s bail plea for the third time in a month.

The court also asked homebuyers to register their claims for refund or flats within three weeks on the website, www.amicusunitech.in. Advocate Pawanshree Aggrawal, the amicus curiae in the case, informed the court that Unitech has yet to deliver 16,299 flats worth ~7,816 crore to investors.He said the website for Unitech homebuyers will be operating from Friday.

The court set October 23 as the next date of hearing.

Chandra requested the court to set him free for six months and promised to build the flats during that period and mobilise funds to pay back the homebuyers wishing to opt out.

“Chandra needs breathing time and his money is stuck in land in which the Unitech projects had come up,” his counsel, Abhimanyu Bhandari, said.

The Unitech chief and his brother, Ajay Chandra, are in jail for allegedly cheating 158 homebuyers of the company’s projects, Wild Flower Country and Anthea, in Gurgaon.