Supreme Court Appoints Ex-Judge Justice AM Sapre To Assist Unitech Board Of Managment In Sale Of Assets

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah appointed the former Supreme Court judge for ensuring that the procedure which has been proposed comports with the need to maintain transparency and is in the interest of realizing the best possible price of the assets which would fund the construction of units for homebuyers.

"We accordingly request former Justice AM Sapre to assist the Board of Management in that regard under the auspices of the directions of this court. The proposed SOP which is formulated in Annex 3.1 of ATR 3 shall be placed before Justice AM Sapre for his scrutiny and such modifications as may be considered in that regard," the bench in the order said.

In January 2020, the Court had allowed the Centre to take total management control of the realty firm and appoint a new board of nominee directors to protect the intersts of over 12,000 homebuyers.

The decision for such appointment was taken by the Top Court while considering the Action Taken Report III wherein the Board of Management had proposed to take sale/monetization of the land assets falling in para 4.2 (1) of the Action Taken Report.

Chapter 3 of the report dealt with, "Setting Up Of Policy/SOP For The Sale of Land Assets" which have been categorized into:

1. Project land assets
2. Non project land assets

On the bench's proposal to appoint a former Supreme Court judge, ASG Venkataraman had submitted that the induction of a former judge of this court into process would not only lend greater transparency but would also protect the board of management which consists of directors which have been appointed form the Union Government from diverse areas.

The Top Court today also asked the Enforcement Directorate to come up with a status report highlighting the steps taken by ED to bring Rs 500 crore which have been siphoned off back to India as well as with regards to the attached assets.

Case Title: Bhupinder Singh v. Unitech Ltd. | Civil Appeal 10856/2016

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