Hindustan Times (Jalandhar)

SC orders banks to release Amrapali homebuyers’ loans

- Abraham Thomas letters@hindustant­imes.com

NEW DELHI: In one stroke, the Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for infusion of at least ~2,000 crore for constructi­on of stalled Amrapali Group housing projects. Two key directions passed by a bench of justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit made the cash infusion possible.

The first direction was to banks to release the balance of loan amounts sanctioned to Amrapali homebuyers. This direction has potential of arranging funds worth over ~3,000 crore.

NEW DELHI: In one stroke, the Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for infusion of at least ~2,000 crore for constructi­on of stalled Amrapali Group housing projects. Two key directions passed by a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit made the cash infusion possible.

The first direction was to banks to release the balance of loan amounts sanctioned to Amrapali homebuyers. This direction has potential of arranging funds worth over ~3,000 crores. According to a note prepared by the court-appointed receiver and senior advocate R Venkatrama­ni, under the head “bank loans to homebu interestye­rs and balance receivable­s from all sold units (of Amrapali projects)” a total of Rs 3,870.4 crore is due. Even homebuyers who failed to make timely deposits due to which their loan accounts were declared NPAs will also benefit from this order. Court directed banks to restructur­e loans in a manner to ensure money is released on stage-wise completion of projects.

The second key direction from the court came with regard to sale of unused floor area ratio (FAR) available under the sanctioned plan for Amrapali projects.

The court said, “A substantia­l amount has to be fetched out of the sale of permissibl­e FAR, which is 2.75, purchasabl­e FAR, which is 0.75, as the case may be, and due to other developmen­ts, if any other FAR is made available, it is permitted to be sold by the Receiver and the Committee to utilize the money to complete various projects.”

For the homebuyers, advocate ML Lahoty said, “The court has resolved that NPA will no more be an impediment in releasing loans. This is a significan­t order as several homebuyers were not in a position to pay.”

UNITECH DIRECTORS GET ACCESS TO LAWYERS

The Delhi high court has declined a plea of jailed real estate firm Unitech’s directors Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra for daily access to their lawyers, citing the Supreme Court’s May 2019 directive against providing them any additional facilities. HC, however, allowed them access to their lawyers via video conferenci­ng twice a week for 30 minutes each.

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