Synopsis: On Friday, the Supreme Court refused to grant bail to Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra, former promoters of Unitech real estate company who were arrested for cheating homebuyers in 2017.
In an alleged case of forgery in 2015, the Supreme Court on Friday, refused to give bail to Unitech founders Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra. On 7th July, Sanjay Chandra was given temporary bail for a month after both of his parents who are senior citizens, were admitted to hospital after they diagnosed with ‘COVID-19’.
With the temporary bail date expiring Thursday, a bench, led by Justice DY Chandrachud, directed Chandra to surrender by Monday to the authorities. He had been detained by Delhi Police’s Economic Offices Division in March, 2017. Investigating officials argued that prima facie investigation suggested that revenue earned by flat buyers was diverted off.
The division bench said the two brothers did not comply with the Supreme Court’s 2017 order by which they were required to deposit Rs 750 crore with the court’s registry by 31st December, 2017, in order to apply for bail.
In their fresh bail application, the two brothers had claimed that they had already deposited more than the Rs 770 crore with the registry. However, the court noticed that the deposit was made beyond the time-limit.
In fact, a portion of the money paid by the two comes from Unitech’s asset monetisation and tax refunds. The court declined to release them on bail while also making it clear that any alteration to an October, 2017, order can only be rendered by a three-judge bench because a three-judge bench passed that order.
A forensic audit study submitted by Grant and Thornton to the Supreme Court in December, 2019, reported that out of 29,800 homebuyers, Unitech received an sum of Rs 14,270 crore. Of that number, the bank statements were traced to Rs 13,364 crores. Around 2006 and 2014 almost 90% of the funding was earned.
The report also claimed that the money trail review revealed that out of the homebuyers’ collections amounting to Rs 13,364.55 crore, approximately Rs 5,063.05 crore, or 40%, the Unitech group could not used in order to build/execute the 74 projects listed there upon.
In January this year, the court had approved a request from the central government to replace Unitech’s board of directors with replacement directors. It directed the supersession of Unitech’s board of directors to enable the assumption of management by the elected directors in terms of the proposal submitted by the Union government. The current Board is headed by Yudhvir Singh Malik, former IAS officer.
In October 2017, the Supreme Court required Chandras to be entitled to bail with the court register after deposit of Rs 750 crore. However, they continued to stay in prison because the condition was not complied with. For the same cause, the top court had dismissed their bail plea in January, 2019.
The court had said in its 201 order that the facts accepted before the court suggest that the Rs 750 Crore deposit order was not complied with. The request on bail for enlargement is misconceived as the petitioners were admitted to bail, according to the deposit condition that is not met.