New Delhi, Oct 11 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Thursday again sent the CMD and two Directors of real estate major Amrapali to police custody till documents of all 46 group companies seized for forensics audit were sorted and catalogued.
Sending CMD Anil Kumar Sharma and Directors Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar to police custody, a bench of Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said: "We want to know where has Rs 2,600 crore gone? What is the trail of money? Where the money has gone?"
The court said that the three will be present during cataloguing of documents, which CMD Anil Sharma said is likely to take 15 days.
The sorting and cataloguing of documents will be done in one office only at any point of time and not simultaneously in different offices.
On the completion of sorting and cataloguing in one office, the activity will shift to another office.
The three were set free a day earlier after sealing of seven premises of the company in Noida and Greater Noida where documents relating to the 46 companies are stocked.
However, as a relaxation, the bench permitted them to stay at their homes for tonight.
The three were directed to report to Station House Officer of Sector 62 police station before 8 a.m. on Friday, from where they will be taken in police custody to one of the sealed company offices to commence cataloguing of documents.
During the entire process, likely to last 15 days, de-sealed offices will function from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Thereafter, the said office will be resealed by police and CMD Sharma and two others lodged in Park Accent Hotel. They will surrender their mobile phones to police during their hotel stay.
Cataloguing was ordered after forensic auditors Pawan Kumar Aggarwal and Ravi Bhatia told the court that documents relating to 46 companies were stacked in gunny bags in places with no power supply or other facilities.
They told the court that unless these documents are sorted out and catalogued, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to proceed with forensic auditing of the accounts of the group's 46 companies.
Amrapali CMD was allowed to solicit the assistance of company staff in sorting and cataloguing of documents. But it should not lead to crowding and exceed a maximum of 20 people. Internal and statutory auditors working with Amrapali group too were asked to chip in.
At the outset of the hearing, the court was told that seven offices of the Amrapali group located in Noida and Greater Noida (both in Uttar Pradesh) and two others in Buxar and Rajgir districts of Bihar have been sealed.
The court asked forensic auditors to take a call if they wished to shift the documents kept in Buxar and Rajgir to Delhi to save time.
Meanwhile, the court said that it will hear the suo motu contempt notice issued against the three company officials after four weeks.
On Tuesday, the apex court had sent the three to police custody till they handed over all documents related to their 46 companies to court-appointed forensic auditors.
