The Delhi High Court has issued notices to 12, including Union government and C&C Towers Ltd, in a writ petition filed by 94 financial creditors of the company.
In her order issued last week, justice Rekha Palli observed that these 94 financial creditors of C&C Towers had filed the petition against the resolution process carried out against the company.
"The present writ petition has been preferred by 94 financial creditors of C&C Towers with a grievance that the resolution process in respect of the said company—which is being carried out pursuant to the orders passed by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) at Chandigarh, if finalised, will gravely prejudice their interest as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) does not provide for a remedy of restitution—even in cases where the corporate debtor has raised money through a fraudulent investment scheme," the bench noted.
(Source: Valuation Report by GAA Advisory)
Justice Palli then asked to issue notices to all respondents. The next hearing is scheduled on 26 October 2021.
These investors, who invested in C&C Towers project at Mohali through Karvy Private Wealth, have been raising their grievances at various forums, including with the resolution professionals (RPs) appointed for the company.
One of the investors in this project says, "The way the resolution plan worked, it is an eye wash and completely neglecting the interest of the deposit holders. The offer for us is to recover 13% of our principal over seven years. We had invested this amount in 2016."
"The sad part of these schemes is most of the investors are senior citizens, who believed in Karvy and they designed these multiple schemes to dupe these investors and they are all distressed as this is the saving of their entire life," the investor alleges.
Interestingly, it is also revealed by the investors that there was 'fraudulent' excess booking for the project for about 2.89 lakh sq ft as against the available space of around 91,000 sq ft.
(Source: Valuation Report by GAA Advisory)
Another investor, who has been sending emails to anyone and everyone who would listen, says, "When the CIRP process started in 2019, many big names in real estate submitted their Expression of interest to take over this prime project. Each of the applicant company had lots of real estate projects to showcase in their resume. But they chose Mahakram Ddevelopers, who does not have a single real estate project to show in their history of past 10 years.
"Looking at filling of Mahakram's balance sheets on the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) website for past eight years, it has no income, no revenues, no products, and no services, whatsoever to show in the balance sheet. There are only losses reported every single year."
There are around 653 investors who had invested about Rs90 crore in C&C Towers project through Karvy Private Wealth.
C&C Towers was incorporated in 2009. In April 2009, it signed a 20-year concession agreement with Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) in April 2009 for an inter-state bus terminal, three multi-storied towers with retail and office spaces, multiplex, five-star hotel, banquet hall, hypermarkets, and a helipad on top of one tower.
In the due course of its operations, the company was not able to meet its debt obligation due to which it went into corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) in October 2019. The application for CIRP was filed by two individuals under Section 7 of the IBC.
These investors of C&C Towers are now hoping that they would get justice from the courts. Commenting on the Delhi HC hearing, one of the investors says, "Not sure, if this would help us to recover our money or not, but at least the High Court mentioning it as fraudulent scheme in its notice makes us feel good."
One of the scheme is C&C towers on which DHC has issued the notice .
Thanks to money life for highlighting .
I would be grateful if all the money cheated by C&C and Karvy is retrived & returned back to the investors ASAP as in this time of Corona it will help a lot of Sr. Citizens could be helped.