Don’t have money to refund home buyers, Unitech tells SC

The Supreme Court has asked advocates representing different groups of home buyers in Unitech's much-delayed Burgundy project on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway near New Delhi to submit a list of those who are seeking a refund from the builder with penalty and those who want possession of their apartments along with a penalty. The next hearing of the case is on 17 August.

Unitech told a bench of Justices Deepak Misra and U U Lalit that it does not have the money to refund buyers and if it had the money it would have completed the project instead. The top court had asked the builder to deposit Rs5 crore in the court registry by 5 August 2016, for delaying the completion of the project failing which respondents could move an application for contempt of court for which directors of the company may be sent to custody. The builder complied with the order.

Last year, on the complaint of two home buyers - Diwakar Mishra and Vinay Kumar Singh - who had bought apartments in the project in October 2010 and were to get possession by April 2012, NCDRC had asked Unitech to offer possession of the apartments on or before 31 October 2017, and also pay "compensation in the form of simple interest at 12 per cent per annum w.e.f. 16.04.2013 till the date on which possession is offered to them or till 31.10.2017, whichever be earlier.

''The interest payable till 31.12.2015 shall be paid in three equal instalments. The first instalment shall be paid by 10.01.2016, the second instalment by 10.02.2016 and the third instalment by 10.03.2016. The compensation in the form of interest for the period w.e.f. 01.01.2016 shall be paid on monthly basis by the 10th of each succeeding month."

The NCDRC order had said, "The grievance of the complainants is that despite they having paid more than 95 per cent of the agreed sale consideration to the opposite party, the possession has not been offered to them and in fact the construction of the flats is still far from complete."