The Supreme Court on Friday said that the cases of real estate company Amrapali Group cannot go on indefinitely. Along with this, the court sought a report on compliance with its instructions on this matter. Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma said that the court is hoping to complete the proceedings pending since 2017 and the reason for this is sufficient compliance so far.

The bench also asked the stand of the flat buyers and Greater Noida Authority on the status report filed by court receiver Attorney General R Venkataramani. It was told in the report that NBCC has completed the construction of about 25 thousand flats in the stalled projects of Amrapali. The court has been passing several directions and orders from time to time to resolve the problems of more than 45 thousand flat buyers in various projects of the group.

The court asked the flat buyers to file their replies

The bench has asked ML Lahoti, counsel for flat buyers, to file a reply on the status report within a week. The court also asked Venkataramani and NBCC counsel Siddharth Dave to file their reply on the responses of flat buyers and Greater Noida Authority.

Lahoti said that in 2019, the court initiated suo motu proceedings against Amrapali Group CMD Anil Sharma and other officials for embezzling Rs 3,000 to 4,000 crore of flat buyers and the order to return the money was not followed. There is nothing on the order of refund in the status report. On this, Venkataramani said, the 2019 order was focused on completing the stalled projects to give relief to flat buyers, which was largely followed.

What is in the status report?

On February 27, court receiver Venkataramani had said in a status report that NBCC has completed the construction of 25,000 flats and has raised Rs 3,177 crore so far by selling 6,686 flats of defaulter buyers.

In August 2021, the court had allowed NBCC to sell the remaining flats after giving a reasonable opportunity to the defaulting flat buyers. The court receiver had given 4,959 unsold flats to NBCC, excluding flats related to double allotment, defaulter category and some other genuine claims.

Of these, 4,733 flats were sold for Rs 2,617 crore, while Rs 2,165 crore was recovered by January 15, 2025. He further said that 1,953 flats of defaulter buyers, who were registered but were not paying, were handed over to NBCC for sale.

These were sold for Rs 1,244 crore, of which Rs 1,012 crore was received till January 15, 2025. In total, NBCC sold 6,686 flats for Rs 3,861 crore and received a total of Rs 3,177 crore from them. NBCC completed the construction of 25 thousand flats of various Amrapali projects in Noida and Greater Noida from 2020 to 2024.