Homebuyers went through hell

New Delhi: The Supreme Court's decision on Amrapali Group on Tuesday has provided a sense of finality to the real-estate giant's monumental fall, that began when tens of thousands of homebuyers did not get possession of their units as promised.

The group's meteoric rise in Noida and Greater Noida began in 2003, with the plan to build 107 flats. The group had started from scratch and within the span of less than a decade, it had entered the major leagues with over 75 projects planned all over India. However, only 25 of those projects have been completed and delivered to the buyers.

The group started selling flats in Noida and Greater Noida in from around 2007 and brought in schemes like the Subvention Plan, Construction Link Plan, Downpayment options to assure buyers that they are entering into tripartite agreements with banks to show the credibility of projects.

While different projects were promised to buyers within two to three years of beginning construction, flat buyers started getting jittery when the deadline started inching closer with no sign of getting possession. Meanwhile, the group kept demanding for the installments from buyers. While the initial delay was chalked up to genuine problems caused by red-tape, what no one saw coming was that the funds the group was collecting in accounts of around 40 of its subsidiaries, were in fact, being diverted by Anil Sharma, the director and his associates for personal use and into other projects.

When the work on Amrapali's projects in the NCR had completely stopped, residents and buyers started approaching government authorities to find a solution after Amarapali stopped communication on their end completely. But dialogues with the BSP, SP, and BJP government did not yield results and finally, the NEFOWA approached the Supreme Court in December 2018. In February 2018, Amrapali director Anil Sharma was arrested and the case blew wide open. On the Apex court's direction, an audit was conducted on the group and it was found that officials of the company had diverted more than Rs 3,500 crore collected from buyers.

Eventually, police complaints started piling up with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police and taking cognizance of those FIRs, the Enforcement Directorate filed a money-laundering case against the group and its directors.