NBCC assures SC about quality and structural safety of Amrapali projects

National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) has assured the Supreme Court that the construction of stalled projects of Amrapali Group will be of good quality and independent experts will assess the safety and quality standards. The assurance was given by the NBCC to a bench of Justices U U Lalit and Bela Trivedi after some Amrapali home buyers voiced their concern in the wake of poor quality work at a housing project in Gurugram, where residents have been asked to vacate the building.

The home buyers, through advocate ML Lahoty sought the court’s intervention in ensuring quality control of the work undertaken by NBCC in the Amrapali projects.

Senior advocate Siddharth Dave, appearing for the NBCC on Monday, said the company was committed to maintaining the quality of work undertaken by it and the controversy over the Gurugram project should not be linked with Amrapali projects.

He said the company would never compromise with the quality of construction and it has hired — NIT-Nagpur and NIT-Jalandhar-to examine the structural strength of the buildings.

Senior advocate N Venkataramani, who has been appointed court receiver by the top court, said that several home buyers have been sending him messages voicing their concern over the quality of construction in Amrapali Projects after the recent Gurugram incident. Lahoty pointed out that there are around 650 home buyers of NBCC’s Green View project in Gurugram who have received notices to vacate the building by this month end.

He said a report of IIT-Delhi has found structural defects in the project and apprehension of Amrapali home buyers is genuine and should be addressed by asking the IIT-Delhi to conduct structural safety audit of the buildings under construction.

Dave said that these Amrapali projects are inherited and as soon as they have found defects, experts are appointed and reports are awaited.

“We don’t want to put the safety of residents at risk”, Dave said. The bench recorded the submissions of Dave in its order and said that the home buyers’ concern should be looked into by the NBCC.

The NBCC had earlier told the top court that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, it was making all efforts towards the successful completion of various projects of the Amrapali Group situated in Noida and Greater Noida.

It had said that at present, 10 projects in Noida and 12 projects in Greater Noida are under execution involving 45,957 units with a sanctioned project cost of Rs 8,025.78 crore.

The apex court in its July 23, 2019, verdict had cracked the whip on errant builders for breaching the trust reposed by homebuyers and ordered the cancellation of the registration of the Amrapali Group under real estate law RERA, and ousted it from prime properties in the NCR by nixing the land leases.

Former group directors of Amrapali– Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar are behind bars on the top court’s order.

The apex court had directed a probe by the Enforcement Directorate into alleged money laundering by realtors, providing relief to over 42,000 home buyers of Amrapali Group with the verdict.

The top court, which is trying to bring in funds for the stalled projects, had then directed the state-run NBCC to complete the stalled projects of the Amrapali Group.