SC cancels Amrapali group’s registration under RERA

CRACKING its whip on errant builders for breaching the trust reposed by home buyers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday cancelled the registration of Amrapali Group under the real estate law RERA, and ousted it from its prime properties in the NCR by nixing the land leases. The judgement, which is first of its kind, may have far reaching consequences and impact across the country on other realtors like Unitech and Jaypee, which are facing similar litigation in the top court from hassled home buyers for not handing over possession of flats on time despite being paid the hard earned money of people.

The apex court, which directed a probe by the Enforcement Directorate into alleged money laundering by realtors, provided relief to over 42,000 home buyers of Amrapali group with the verdict. It directed the state-run National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) to complete the stalled projects of the realtor, whose directors Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar are behind the bars on the top court’s order. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit directed the Centre and state governments to ensure that appropriate action is taken against builders who have not completed their projects in Noida and Greater Noida as well as in other states.

It directed the Centre and States to ensure that projects are completed in a time-bound manner as contemplated in RERA and home buyers are not defrauded, and ordered the Noida and Greater Noida authorities to give completion certificate to the home buyers of Amrapali group who are already residing in various projects. The top court also termed the sequence of events in Amrapali group a “shocking and surprising state of affairs” where such large-scale cheating has taken place and middle and poor class home buyers were duped and deprived of their hard-earned money.

The bench also directed the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to initiate disciplinary action against Chartered Accountant Anil Mittal who was overseeing the accounts of Amrapali Group. It said the high-profile realtor diverted the home buyers money in other projects, played fraud on them by not adhering to the time frame to complete projects and also failed to comply with the orders of the apex court.