Stock falls...

Buyers are worried, too. “We see our projects in danger now. We doubt that they will be completed on time. People who have invested all their savings in these projects are anxious now,” said Sanjay Jain, secretary of the Capital Greens Flat Buyers Association, a DLF residential project in Moti Nagar, New Delhi.

DLF had failed to meet the 2012 deadline for the handover of flats that were still incomplete, Jain said. They are now planning to take the company to court.

DLF is India’s most indebted property developer. As of June 30, its borrowings stood at Rs19,064 crore, higher than the market value of Rs18,701.33 crore. The SEBI blow wiped Rs6,000 crore off its value Tuesday when its stock plunged 28.5 % to 104.15 rupees.

The company might need to dig deep into its commercial prop erties put out on rent, analysts said. “The only saving grace in its portfolio are assets that earn annual rentals of more than Rs2,100 crore. It can always – in the worst case scenario – sell these income-producing assets to generate more than Rs20,000 crore which is equal to their total debt,” said another consultant on condition of anonymity.

SEBI has barred the company and six top executives, including promoter-chairman KP Singh from accessing the securities mar ket, choking its options to raise fresh funds. The move came after seven years of investigation into the charges that the realtor didn’t give complete information when it went public in 2007. In recent years, DLF has faced a welter of problems including angry lawsuits by customers upset with project delays and political controversies surrounding its alleged links with Robert Vadra son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. DLF has promised to “defend itself to the fullest extent” against the accusations and said it was “confident of the vindication of its stand”.

(With inputs from Mumbai)