Bikram Chatterji & Ors. vs. Union of India & Ors.
Background
This is part of the Supreme Court's continuing supervision of the Amrapali Group housing-fraud litigation, where the Court had earlier cancelled Amrapali's leases, appointed a Court Receiver and NBCC to complete stalled projects, and in 2020 reduced to 8% per annum the interest payable by Amrapali to the Noida and Greater Noida Authorities on outstanding land dues. Other builders unrelated to Amrapali (Ace, Prateek, Supertech, Ajnara, Paramount groups) later obtained similar interest reductions by riding on applications listed alongside the Amrapali matter, prompting Noida and Greater Noida Authorities to seek recall of those orders as wrongly extended beyond Amrapali. Separately, in the same writ petition, an associate named Prem Mishra sought release of attached properties tied to an Amrapali-linked Indore project, after the Enforcement Directorate had quantified and confirmed a lower siphoned amount than the forensic auditors' estimate.
Decision Breakdown
On the interest-rate applications, the Court held that its earlier interest-reduction orders were meant only for Amrapali-linked projects and had erroneously and inadvertently been extended to unrelated builders' projects without adequate notice to the Authorities or full appreciation of the roughly Rs. 7,500 crore combined financial impact; it recalled those orders as applied to non-Amrapali projects and directed Noida/Greater Noida to recalculate dues under the State Government's separate general interest-reduction notification instead. On the Prem Mishra application, the Court declined to release the attached properties, holding that his claimed ownership rested only on an unregistered MoU with unresolved legal status, that the bulk of investment in the underlying land had in fact come from Amrapali Group funds, and that his entitlement was still undetermined, so attachment beyond the ED-confirmed siphoned amount could not be lifted at this stage; that issue was left to be decided along with connected applications.
Lesson Learnt
Courts exercising ongoing supervisory jurisdiction over a specific set of parties (here, Amrapali homebuyers) will correct and recall relief that was inadvertently extended to unconnected third parties riding on the same case number, and will not release attached assets based on a claimant's own unregistered agreement when the true source of the underlying investment remains disputed.