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The Supreme Court has dismissed the bail plea of jailed former CMD of Amrapali Group of Companies Anil Kumar Sharma, saying he doesn't deserve “sympathy” after having siphoned off the hard-earned money and life savings of thousands of homebuyers.
"You have cheated thousands of homebuyers. You siphoned off their hard-earned money and their life savings. You do not deserve any sympathy," a bench comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said, and refused to issue notice to the prosecuting agency on the bail plea of Sharma who has been in jail for over four years in the case.
“Yours is not a case of simple cheating. See the plight of thousands of home buyers. You cannot have our sympathy. You better enjoy being in jail... This court is very aware of what you did.
"You created the mess and we are not able to find a way out of it. A large number of home buyers are suffering," the bench said on Thursday.
The former CMD of the real estate group and other directors of the firm were arrested on the direction of the top court after a forensic audit report revealed that a large amount of home buyers' money was siphoned off by the management.
It said the offence ran "very deep" and even the court was facing difficulties in tackling the problem.
Earlier, the top court had granted Sharma interim bail for a few weeks on medical grounds.
Sharma and others have been in jail after their arrest in 2018 for various offences, including those of cheating, criminal breach of trust and money laundering, and have spent nearly four years in prison.
The apex court had, in a July 23, 2019 verdict, cracked down on errant builders for breaching the trust reposed by home buyers and ordered cancellation of registration of the Amrapali Group under real estate law RERA and ousted it from prime properties in the national capital region (NCR) by nixing the land leases.
The top court had ordered a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into alleged money laundering by realtors, providing relief to over 42,000 home buyers of the Amrapali Group.
Besides ED, the Economic Offences Wing (EoW) of the Delhi Police and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) have also been investigating various cases lodged against the former officials of the real estate group.
The top court has given the task of completing the construction of 16 projects consisting of 46,575 dwelling units to the National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC).
Out of the 16, nine housing projects are situated in Noida and the remaining in Greater Noida.
The NBCC has said over Rs 8,000 crore is needed to complete the projects.