Supreme Court supervises Amrapali completion as ED probe runs

What the Record Shows

The Amrapali matter is being worked out under the continuing supervision of the Supreme Court of India in Bikram Chatterji v. Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 940 of 2017. In its judgment the Court cancelled the Amrapali Group's registrations under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, cancelled the lease deeds granted by the Noida and Greater Noida authorities, and vested the projects in a court-appointed receiver, appointing NBCC (India) Ltd as the agency to complete the stalled towers.

Per the Court's order dated 28 February 2023, the forensic auditors' reports placed before the bench indicated a prima facie violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act and other conduct the auditors characterised as fraudulent activity and money laundering. On that footing the Court directed the Enforcement Directorate to investigate and to file progress reports, and directed the police to report on their own investigations. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India was directed to initiate disciplinary proceedings against a chartered accountant connected with the group.

None of this is a criminal conviction. The former Chairman and Managing Director, Anil Kumar Sharma, was arrested on the Court's direction after the forensic audit and was later granted bail; the criminal proceedings against him and other directors remain at the trial stage. This report is a fair and accurate account of the Supreme Court proceedings; the audit findings are the auditors' conclusions as placed before the Court, not proven facts.

How It Worked

The mechanism, as the Supreme Court-ordered forensic audit describes it, turned on the diversion of homebuyer money. Per the audit report before the Court, sums collected from purchasers against specific towers in Noida and Greater Noida were not confined to constructing those towers; the auditors reported that money was routed into the shares of sister concerns and into asset creation rather than into the projects the buyers had paid for. On the auditors' account, roughly Rs 3,000 crore of homebuyer funds was traced in this way, leaving projects stalled for close to a decade.

The procedural history runs on two tracks that meet in the same courtroom. On the civil and completion side, the Court restrained the development authorities from resuming the land, cancelled the lease deeds, appointed a court receiver, and brought in NBCC to finish construction on a commission basis, initially set around 8 per cent. It directed the Noida and Greater Noida authorities to restructure the repayment schedule for outstanding premiums and directed homebuyers to deposit their outstanding dues into designated accounts for phased disbursement to the executing agency.

On the criminal and enforcement side, the Court directed the Enforcement Directorate to pursue a money-laundering investigation. Per the record, the ED reported a provisional attachment of Rs 4.79 crore on 22 February 2021, and supplementary forensic reports identified further sums as recoverable from named individuals. The statutes engaged across these strands are RERA, FEMA and the money-laundering law, together with the ordinary criminal law under which the directors face trial. The allegations against the accused are yet to be tested and proven.

Who Lost Money

The people at the centre of the matter are the homebuyers, approximately 42,000 of them, who had paid for flats across Amrapali's Noida and Greater Noida projects and then watched construction stall for eight to ten years or more. Per the forensic audit placed before the Court, about Rs 3,000 crore of their money was traced as diverted from construction, which is the direct measure of the harm the completion effort is trying to undo.

The remedy here is unusual, and worth understanding: rather than a cash payout, the relief is the completion of the flats themselves. Per NBCC's status reports to the Supreme Court, the agency had, to December 2024, completed about 25,000 flats and had sold 6,686 units belonging to defaulting buyers to raise roughly Rs 3,177 crore, with the Court also clearing about 8,000 additional apartments in six projects to fund completion and directing banks to restructure buyer loans and release undisbursed balances.

That means recovery for most buyers takes the form of possession of a finished home rather than a refund, funded partly by fresh deposits from existing buyers and by the sale of defaulters' units. Buyers who cannot pay their outstanding dues, or whose units were sold to raise funds, sit in a different position, and the completion programme is still running project by project.

Where It Stands Now

As of today the matter is live and court-monitored, with no criminal conviction recorded. The Supreme Court continues to supervise completion through NBCC and the court receiver, to take periodic status reports, and to direct the development authorities and banks on restructuring and disbursement. Per the record, the Enforcement Directorate's money-laundering investigation proceeds under the Court's directions, with the provisional attachment reported in February 2021 among its steps.

The criminal case against Anil Kumar Sharma and other directors is at the trial stage. He was arrested on the Court's direction and has since been granted bail. A forensic-audit finding, a provisional attachment or a chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt; the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues.

The completion figures move with each status report, so the count of finished flats and funds raised is a running total rather than a final tally. Readers should treat the operational numbers as the position on the latest report reviewed, not a closed account.

What It Means

The Amrapali matter is, in one sense, the system working in slow motion. A court receiver, a public-sector executing agency and continuing judicial supervision replaced a collapsed developer, and tens of thousands of flats that had stood unfinished for years have been completed. But it also shows how long that route takes and how much it asks of the very buyers who were harmed, who are often required to pay outstanding dues afresh to fund the completion of homes they had already paid for.

For anyone buying an under-construction flat, the practical lessons are concrete: check that a project and its promoter are registered with the state RERA authority and that the registration is current, confirm that payments are being made into the project's designated RERA account rather than a general company account, and track construction milestones against the registered timeline. A homebuyer can model the real cost of a delayed purchase, including the interest carried on a home loan while a project stalls, using a real-estate return calculator.

Our wider enforcement archive follows how these real-estate and PMLA matters actually resolve, and the Amrapali case remains one of the clearest illustrations of the gap between an allegation of diversion and the years of court-supervised work it takes to make buyers whole.

FAQ

Are the accused in the Amrapali matter guilty?

No court has convicted them. A forensic-audit finding, an ED attachment or a chargesheet contains allegations, not findings of guilt. Anil Kumar Sharma and the other directors are accused and facing trial; they are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and due process continues under the Supreme Court's supervision.

What did the Supreme Court actually order?

Per Writ Petition (Civil) No. 940 of 2017, the Court cancelled Amrapali's RERA registrations and lease deeds, vested the projects in a court receiver, appointed NBCC to complete the towers, ordered a forensic audit, directed an ED money-laundering investigation, and directed the authorities and banks to restructure buyer dues and loans.

Have the homebuyers got their flats?

Many have. Per NBCC's status reports to the Court, about 25,000 flats had been completed to December 2024, and 6,686 units of defaulting buyers were sold to raise roughly Rs 3,177 crore. Completion continues project by project, and relief here takes the form of a finished flat rather than a cash refund.

Is Anil Kumar Sharma in jail?

No. Per the record, he was arrested on the Supreme Court's direction after the forensic audit and was later granted bail. The criminal case against him and other directors remains at the trial stage, and the presumption of innocence applies.

What money did the ED attach?

Per the record before the Court, the Enforcement Directorate reported a provisional attachment of Rs 4.79 crore on 22 February 2021 as part of its money-laundering investigation, alongside further sums the forensic auditors identified as recoverable from named individuals. A provisional attachment is an investigation-stage step, not a conviction.

Where can I read the official record?

The Supreme Court's orders in Bikram Chatterji v. Union of India are reproduced on Indian Kanoon and are linked below.

This report is based on the Supreme Court order dated 28 February 2023 and the Supreme Court order dated 7 November 2022 in Bikram Chatterji v. Union of India, reviewed on 1 August 2026.