New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Delhi Police to arrest the Amrapali promoter Anil Sharma and two other directors Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar of the real estate company from inside the court hall in connection with an economic offences complaint registered against them.
A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Uday Lalit while ordering their arrest in October last in connection with a number of cases filed by aggrieved homebuyers said that they would be in the custody of the Uttar Pradesh Police and confined to a hotel till the completion of the forensic audit of their companies.
The Bench had directed forensic audit to find out whether the money invested by the homebuyers were diverted for some other purposes. The Bench had summoned the Directors to seek information regarding the documents to be produced.
The Bench while ordering the arrest told the Delhi Police “We had never stopped any agency from arresting the directors, who are presently housed at a hotel under the direction of UP police.”
On behalf of Delhi Police it was submitted that the three directors have to be taken into police custody in connection with a criminal complaint registered against them.
The bench had earlier expressed its anguish over the conduct of the company, which has kept 42,000 buyers waiting for their dreams for years. It criticised Amrapali for committing “fraud” and “misdirecting” the court and for criminal breach of “buyers’ trust”.
The court was upset when the company submitted a proposal to deposit only Rs 400 crore of the Rs 4,000 crore that is needed for finishing its stalled projects. It told the company Directors would be rendered homeless and be forced to look for homes for themselves, if they acted smart in front of the court. The court had also observed that a "big scandal is taking place in the name of real estate business.
The Bench had entrusted the task of finishing the projects to the National Buildings Construction Corporation India Ltd (NBCC), to complete 46,575 flats. On October 3, 2018 NBCC was given the nod to float tenders for selecting a developer to complete Amrapali's stalled projects. The Bench also asked the state-run builder to prepare a detailed project report for pending projects within 60 days.
In the meantime, the Noida Authority and the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority have seized residential as well as commercial properties of the realtor, including 5,000 flats.
