The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the government’s proposal to take over the management of the embattled real estate major Unitech Ltd and appointed a new board of directors to steer the completion of pending projects and provide homes for more than 12,000 investors in dire straits.
A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah appointed former IAS officer Yudvir Singh Malik as the Chairman and Managing Director of the new board while refusing to give a berth on the board to Unitech Group founder Ramesh Chandra at this stage.
“The idea of a professional board is to allow them to take control of the company and complete the pending projects in the interest of homebuyers,” the court said.
The board includes A.K. Mittal, ex-CMD of the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC); Renu Sud Karnad, Chairman of the HDFC Credila Finance Service Pvt Ltd; Jitu Virwani, CMD of the Embassy Group and Niranjan Hiranandani, MD of the Mumbai-based Hiranandani Group.
The court barred the institution of any fresh cases against Unitech for two months. Old orders and enforcement of them also stand suspended for the period.
Unitech promoters Sanjay Chandra and his brother Ajay Chandra are lodged in the Tihar jail for allegedly siphoning off homebuyers’ money.
The court said the probe into the irregularities would continue and said the work of a panel led by former Delhi High Court judge, Justice S.N. Dhingra, appointed to sell the company’s assets and use the money for completion of projects, would continue to work till the new board comes up with a resolution framework. The court indicated that it would appoint a retired Supreme Court judge to monitor the preparation of the resolution framework.
The top court directed the present management, forensic auditors, asset reconstruction companies, banks and financial institutions and State governments to extend cooperation to the new board.
