New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed that a meeting be convened between home buyers and real estate group Amrapali on Saturday to arrive at a consensus on the status of its various housing projects.
The meeting will be held at 11am at the Supreme Court consultation room and, thereafter, a joint statement on the developments of the meeting would be filed before the court.
The court observed that there was an urgent need for consensus between the real estate group and home buyers on identifying projects that were nearing completion, mid-way and those nowhere near completion.
On 22 February, the court had directed real estate group Amrapali to finish the remaining work on 19 towers in its Leisure Valley housing project in Greater Noida.
The real estate company was also asked to furnish details of collaborators for funding and other assistance on the project. It was further directed to file a status report within a month so that the court could check on the progress of the project.
This was in line with the comprehensive proposal submitted by Amrapali on how it planned to deliver 41,000 flats to its buyers in various projects.
A total of 107 homebuyers on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against an order of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) that admitted Bank of Baroda’s insolvency petition against Amrapali’s Silicon City project in Noida.
The Amrapali group has liabilities of about Rs3,000 crore towards authorities and owes over Rs1,000 crore to about 10 banks. The property developer needs about Rs3,000 crore to complete its ongoing projects. In this specific project, the realtor has defaulted on a loan of Rs55 crore taken from Bank of Baroda. Home buyers have sought quashing of the September order passed by the NCLT, and said the moratorium imposed under provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) is violative of Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution.
They have sought that debts owed to home buyers be treated equally with that of creditors specified under the code. Challenging various provisions of the IBC, it was submitted that the homebuyers belonged to the low- and middle-income groups, who should not be subjected to liquidation proceedings of discriminatory nature and must be granted equal protection as other stakeholders—financial and operational creditors.
On 4 September, NCLT admitted insolvency proceedings against Amrapali and appointed an interim resolution professional (IRP) to carry out the proceedings under the code. Under the order, the tribunal issued a moratorium prohibiting any fresh proceedings or continuation of any proceedings against Amrapali Silicon City Pvt. Ltd.
This, according to the petitioners, will have a bearing on the home buyers of Amrapali Centurian Park Pvt. Ltd, which is a subsidiary of Amrapali Silicon City Pvt. Ltd.
The case will be heard next on 27 March.