Supreme Court asked Jaiprakash Associate Limited (JAL), holding firm of Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL) for the details of its housing project in the country and also said the house holders should get either their house or money back. However, bench constituting of Chief Justice Deepak Mishra refused for the urgent hearing on the plea of RBI so that the case proceeding can be held under National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) against JAL and then at later stage it would be dealt. Bench constituted of Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said that:
"Lower middle class homebuyers of JAL cannot be made to run from forum to forum. We want to protect homebuyers,"
Submission from senior advocate Ranjit Kumar was accepted by the court, representing eight independent directors of JAL, that they were old and resided in different parts of the country and should be exempted from personal appearance. The Top Court while exempting these eight independent directors also said said they can neither leave the country without the permission of the court nor they can create third party right or alienate their property to someone else. Maintaining that interest of home buyers is paramount , court said that JAL have to pay money in pursuance of its earlier order.
Regarding the sale of assets of JAL and JIL court said that "we are only concerned with the deposit of money and any such move (sale or merger etc) will amount to contempt court... if anyone does that, then Tihar (jail) is not far from here".
During the proceedings, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and lawyer Anupam Lal Das mentioned that only 8% of home buyers want the money refund, rest of 92% want the home to be delivered. Rohatgi also said that JAL has deposited 425 crore of the apex court registry and the rest of 125 crore will be deposited by 25th January. The top court which has ordered JAL to deposit 2000 crore as a court registry, later allowed to be submitted in instalments of 3 of 550 crore each.
On November 13, the Court has also restrained the directors and managing directors of JIL from travelling abroad with the permission. The court has ordered Jaypee Infratech to handover its records to the interim resolution professional (IRP) to draft a resolution plan indicating protection of interests of over 32,000 hassled home buyers and creditors. The court also ordered of staying the proceedings against JAL in any other court as IRP will be controlling the company’s management. The proceedings against the real state has been stayed by the court in National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
The plea said that, “Hundreds of home buyers have been left in the lurch after the NCLT, on August 10, admitted the IDBI Bank's plea to initiate insolvency proceedings against the debt-ridden realty company for defaulting on a Rs 526 crore loan”
Courtesy/By: Rishabh Agarwal
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12 Jan 2018
