Amrapali Group fund diversion case: Supreme Court orders attachment of firm's five-star hotel, mall and FMCG company

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered attachment embattled real estate company Amrapali Group’s properties including a five-star hotel, corporate office, mall, FMCG company, a media report said. The group is facing suits by homebuyers for alleged diversion of money collected by some of the group’s firms. Amrapali Group CMD Anil Sharma, in an affidavit in the Supreme Court, revealed that he and his family members received crores of rupees over the years as ‘salary and professional charges’, The Times of India reported. In November, the Supreme Court had attached the company’s 100-bed multi-speciality hospital, bank accounts, the building which houses its office, certain firms and a “benami” Villa in Goa. [caption id=“attachment_5319041” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. News18[/caption] The top court asked the Chief Financial Officer Chander Wadhwa to deposit Rs 11.69 crore with its registry within three weeks. It also asked a statutory auditor Anil Mittal to pay Rs 47 lakh. It restrained the realty firm from alienating its companies through which it had transactions and ordered attachment of such firms. It also restrained Amrapali Group from creating any third party rights for 86 luxury cars and SUVs purchased from the company’s funds. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit said that Amrapali Group has deliberately not complied with its earlier order and committed a “serious fraud” by diverting home-buyers’ money from one company to other. The bench ordered that attachment of the group’s state-of-the-art, multi-speciality, 100-bed hospital situated at Greater Noida for which funds from Ultra Home Construction Pvt Ltd were utilised. The bench also attached the bank accounts of GauriSuta Infrastructures Pvt Ltd, its director Sunil Kumar and its assets after forensic auditors disclosed that Amrapali transferred home-buyers’ money from one firm to sister companies using it as conduit. The top court also directed attachment of towers which housed the company’s office and ‘Aqua Fortis’ villa in Goa for no one came forward to claim ownership. With inputs from PTI