NEW DELHI: The government-appointed board of the Unitech Group has moved a court here seeking release and restoration of assets worth Rs 1,257 crore, attached by the Enforcement Directorate as part of a money-laundering probe into the alleged fraud committed by erstwhile promoter-directors of the real estate group.
The ED, meanwhile, has informed the court that it is “willing” to release the properties. If the court approves the demand, it will allow the board to utilise the resources to carry out the construction of Unitech’s stalled projects, bringing relief to thousands of people who have for years been waiting for the delivery of their houses.
The properties attached by the ED are “liable to be utilised by the government-appointed board for the purposes of construction and settlement of claims of other stakeholders”, the board said in its petition. The board has a “legitimate interest” in the attached properties, it said in the petition seen by ET.
People in the know told ET that top ED officials and the company board held a meeting recently where the central agency persuaded the board to petition the court so that the attached properties could be restored.
The court is likely to decide on the petition in the second week of October.
In its petition, the board argued that the “erstwhile promoter-directors collected money and created liability qua more than 17,000 homebuyers to whom residential units (plots/villas/floors/flats) and commercial spaces were sold from 2005 till about 2016, the majority being between 2009 to 2014”.
“However, the money received from them was diverted for other purposes” and most of this was for the personal gains of the Chandras, the group’s former promoters-directors, it said.
The homebuyers have been awaiting completion and delivery of their properties, which could not be done due to severe financial losses suffered due to the diversion of funds, it said.
“Now, the task of completion of such units is being undertaken by the union government-appointed board,” it said, adding that the confiscated properties need to be restored to the homebuyers, who had raised loans from banks and are staying in rented accommodation.
“Such homebuyers have been doubly prejudiced since they are paying interest on loans taken for their dream homes and are also paying rent as the units were never constructed and delivered,” it said.
Hence, the petition said, the government-appointed board has “proposed completion and delivery of homes to these homebuyers at the same price at which they booked these units, notwithstanding huge escalation in construction costs”. It sought to “cover this additional burden of increased costs while seeking restoration of attached properties”.
The board has claimed that the diversion of funds by the erstwhile directors and promoters had resulted in accumulated liabilities of more than Rs 25,000 crore to several authorities including the Noida, Greater Noida authorities and the Haryana government. It argued that the Unitech Group suffered “quantifiable loss” due to diversion of more than Rs 5,000 crore of homebuyers’ money, by the erstwhile promoter-directors of Unitech to its related/ associated offshore and onshore entities.
