The Supreme Court today put on hold a tribunal's order which allowed takeover of real estate company Unitech by the government. On Tuesday, the top court had rapped the NCLT or National Company Law Tribunal for passing an order in the Unitech case at a time when the top court was hearing the case. The real estate developer had moved the Supreme Court on Monday against the tribunal's order. Unitech shares, which had rallied after the December 8 order of the tribunal, fell over 5 per cent today.
"When we are hearing this matter how can NCLT pass orders. It is disturbing," the top court said on Tuesday.
Attorney general KK Venugopal today told the Supreme Court that that the government should not have approached the NCLT and the tribunal shouldn't have passed an order allowing takeover of Unitech at a time the top court is hearing the matter.
The tribunal had on Friday (December 8) suspended all the eight directors of the realty firm over allegations of mismanagement and siphoning of funds, while authorising the government to appoint its 10 nominees on the board.
Unitech had challenged the tribunal's order saying that "no coercive steps for execution" can be taken in view of a November 20 order of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court had recently asked Unitech to deposit Rs 750 crore by December-end in bail pleas of Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra, who were arrested by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police in April for allegedly not developing a project despite receiving funds from home buyers. The Chandra brothers had moved the top court after the Delhi High Court refused to grant interim bail to them.
In a rare move, the government had earlier approached the tribunal to take over the management to protect the interest of nearly 20,000 home buyers, and 51,000 depositors to whom the company owes Rs 723 crore. The government's intervention in this case comes almost a decade after it had taken over the board of IT firm Satyam (now Tech Mahindra) and sold it to the Mahindras.
Unitech had moved the Supreme Court on Monday against the tribunal's order.
