Bad news for Amrapali group; SC to seek account details of company, directors directly from 20 banks

Beginning today, over the next seven days, phone calls will go from the Supreme Court Registry to the offices of 20 banks in Delhi-NCR requiring transaction details of over 100 account numbers held in the name of Amrapali Group companies and its directors.

This is the latest attempt by the apex court to extract information required for audit of the realty firm from 2008 till date.

The extraordinary order was passed by a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit on Tuesday during the hearing on contempt pleas against the three directors of Amrapali group - Anil Kumar Sharma, Shivpriya and Ajay Kumar.

With the homebuyers represented by advocate M L Lahoty compiling orders passed by the court from November 22, 2017, till date to show total non-compliance by the group and its directors, the bench decided to give one last opportunity to the real estate firm to comply all orders passed from time to time during the past one year.  

This included supplying documents to the court-appointed forensic auditors about the number of companies related to the group, the financial transactions made by the group, its directors, family members and relatives of directors.

About bank details, the forensic auditors Ravi Bhatia and Pawan Agarwal informed the court that no bank was cooperating with the details despite a specific court order to the respective banks.

In 20 banks, Amrapali Group companies and its directors held bank accounts, they informed the court.

They admitted that work had not proceeded for a week due to lack of manpower as promised by Amrapali. Realising the acute shortage of manpower facing the auditors, the bench took the details of the banks with the account numbers and handed it to the court registry.

The court directed the registry staff to call the banks and get transaction details of the given accounts from the date of its opening till the present day. For this purpose, the registry has to first send out a letter attaching a copy of the court’s order requesting for the information. The banks too will have to act with haste as the deadline to compile the information is seven days.

The court fixed the matter for hearing on December 5, asking lawyers appearing for Amrapali to instruct their clients to make full and final disclosure of all information required about their companies, financial dealings with other companies as contained in the earlier orders.

The bench said, “In case there is no disclosure or forensic auditors find any non-disclosure, the writing is on the wall....We will send them to jail if necessary.” The suo moto contempt petition against the directors will also come up for hearing on the next date.

This story first appeared in DNA Money: SC to seek bank a/c details of Amrapali group, directors