Amrapali group playing 'hide and seek', says SC; sends its three directors to police custody

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sent three directors of real estate Amrapali group to police custody after they failed to submit documents relating to its accounts to forensic auditors.

The pull up Amrapali group for "playing hide and seek" with the court. "You are playing with the dignity of this court. You are not complying with this court's earlier orders as far as the forensic audits are concerned," the bench said.  

The directors of the real estate group -- Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar -- failed to provide the documents relating to the company's accounts to forensic auditors.

The court also directed them to hand over all the documents of the 46 group companies to forensic auditors.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit took exception to the Amprapali group not handing over all the documents to forensic auditors and said that they will remain in police custody till they hand over all the documents.

The apex court's order came on a batch of petitions filed by home buyers who are seeking possession of around 42,000 flats.

The court said the conduct of the directors was in "gross violation" of its order.

"You are playing hide and seek. You are trying to mislead the court," the bench said.

It directed the Delhi police to seize all the documents of the Amrapali group and hand them over to forensic auditors, emphasising that not a single document of these companies should remain in custody of the group.

The top court had earlier allowed National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC) to float tenders for selecting the builder to complete the stalled projects of Amrapali Group and asked it to prepare a detailed project report for pending projects within 60 days.

On September 12, the apex court had appointed NBCC to develop stalled projects of the realty firm and directed the Debts Recovery Tribunal to sell the unencumbered commercial properties of the group.

It had also directed the opening of an escrow account in the apex court in which the amount received after the sale of properties would be deposited and later disbursed to the NBCC to start construction of the pending projects in Group A and B Categories.

Besides, it directed that bank accounts, balance sheets and other documents of all the 46 Amrapali companies and Jotindra Steel, since 2008 be given to the forensic auditors.

The apex court had on September 6 identified 16 properties of Amrapali for auctioning, preferably by the NBCC, to give the PSU an initial corpus to start work on the stalled projects. It had also ordered a forensic audit of the firm and its promoters to gauge the extent of financial wrongdoings.

The group CMD had come under the top court's scanner for declaring his assets worth at Rs 67 crore as against Rs 847 crore in his affidavit filed during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when he had unsuccessfully contested as a JD(U) candidate from Bihar's Jehanabad constituency.

The NBCC had earlier given a proposal for completion of 15 residential projects of Amrapali having 46,575 flats at an estimated cost of Rs 8,500 crore in six to 36 months.

(With PTI inputs)