Unitech's MD liberty costs 16,299 homebuyers' tears: SC denies bail

Unitech Limited's chairman, 2 MDs, were handed a three-year jail term for non-compliance of orders by UT State Consumer Commission.

Unitech had been asked to provide compensation along with "refund of the money deposited in June 2016" by a buyer.

However, Unitech did not comply.

This is the 4th time in two months that the 3 years jail term has been awarded to them.

The Supreme Court came down hard on chairman Ramesh Chandra, MDs Ajay and Sanjay Chandra and asked them to appear on 5 May.

The court said that a "proposed scheme of compromise between the company and some homebuyers in its projects" was needed.

Further, the court asked Unitech to present its final plan for the fulfillment of its pending projects.

Unitech Managing Director, Sanjay Chandra was arrested by the economic offenses wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police for financial irregularities.

Sanjay Chandra is accused of illegally divesting the capital of one project into a separate company.

He purportedly got the funds invested in the other company and siphoned off the funds into foreign accounts.

2 others were arrested along with Chandra.

The Delhi Police had previously filed an FIR against the Chandra brothers on the grievance of home buyers.

Chandra was involved in deceiving buyers who had bought flats in his Greater Noida residential scheme.

The buyers claimed that Unitech had not finished the project on time and also had not provided them with a mandatory refund with interest.

It has come to light that Unitech ran a fixed deposit scheme in 2012 without approval, promising 55,000 customers 12% returns, and raised Rs. 600cr.

Most lost their investments, which were channeled into the group's projects; some lost their life's savings.

Currently, Unitech MDs Ajay and Sanjay Chandra are facing 24 different cases, including fraud and non-payment of FD etc.

After learning Unitech still hasn't handed over 16,299 flats for which it received Rs. 7,816cr, the SC has denied interim bail to MD Sanjay Chandra.

Rejecting the argument that incarceration breached the principle of jurisprudence, the court observed Chandra's liberty came at the cost of 16,299 homebuyers' tears.

Earlier, it had asked these thousands if they wanted the flats or refunds.