Relief for Amrapali Buyers, Apex Court directs Banks to release Balance Loan Amount

On Wednesday, in a major relief to Amrapali homebuyers, the Top Court asked banks to release balance amount of sanctioned loans to them, even those which have been declared Non-Performing Assets or NPA.

The bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice UU Lalit passed the order keeping in view the current situation where the housing projects have come to a standstill due to lack of funds. The bench has kept the next hearing of the case on Wednesday, June 17, for passing further directions with regard to additional suggestions received from court-appointed receiver and Senior Lawyer R Venkatramani who is helping with the execution of projects.

After the SC order, the banks need to restructure the loans.

At the last hearing on June 3, SBICAP Ventures, which manages the Govt sponsored stress fund for the real estate sector, had told the Apex Court that it was ready to fund the stalled projects of embattled real estate firm.

The SBICAP Ventures told the Supreme Court that it would create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with court receiver on board and would appoint a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to take over the construction of 7 stalled projects.

Currently, the construction of stalled projects of Amrapali is being handled by National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC).

In Dec 2019, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to inform it as to how much time it will take to decide on application for financing Amrapali’s stalled projects from the newly launched Rs 25,000 crore stress fund for the real estate sector.

The Centre has submitted that the State Bank of India has been appointed as a fund manager and it will disburse the amount based on certain norms after an application is made by a real estate entity.

The SC in its July 23, 2019, verdict had cracked its whip on errant builders for breaching the trust reposed by home buyers and ordered the cancellation of the registration of the Amrapali Group under real estate law RERA, and ousted it from prime properties in the NCR by nixing the land leases.

It had directed the state-run NBCC to complete the stalled projects of the Amrapali Group, whose directors Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar are behind bars on the top court’s order.

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