By Sumit Saxena
New Delhi, July 25 (IANS) Anil Kumar Sharma, CMD of Amrapali Group of Companies, paid Rs 36 lakh to ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar and this falls under the category of misuse of funds paid by home buyers, said the Supreme Court in its judgement on Amrapali Group.
Manohar's name features on the list of third parties who received money from the corpus of Rs 8.71 crore which Sharma had at its disposal. The top court has ordered the Enforcement Directorate to investigate the issue of money laundering in the real estate group.
The court has termed this wrongful diversion of funds as "misuse of funds" by Directors involved in the scam.
The court observed: "The directors and executives colluded with each other and diverted home buyers funds." Manohar got paid from this contentious corpus.
Speaking to IANS, Manohar, a lawyer by profession, said: "I have appeared for Amrapali Group in a case in the Patna High Court four years ago." He denied any other association with the group.
The transfer of funds to Manohar was done under the supervision of Sharma.
Manohar's name features twice in the judgement - first on the list of receivers of diverted funds and second on a table containing details of particulars of payments made by Sharma, prepared by forensic auditors.
The other names on the list include Chandan Homes Pvt Ltd, Sapphire Digital Printers, Manas Nursing Home, Surbhaee Advertising Pvt Ltd and Quality Synthetic Industries Ltd.
The directors spent the home buyers' funds on wedding, foreign travels, expensive watches, jewellery and luxury cars.
The money was also used for investment in mutual funds, creating personal properties, payment of housing loans as well as investment in shares and securities.
The top court has cancelled the real estate company's RERA registration and appointed the state-run National Buildings Construction Corp Ltd (NBCC) to complete all pending projects.
The court has directed the ED to register a money laundering case against the company, its CEO and Managing Director Anil Sharma and directors Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar for violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms.
(Sumit Saxena can be contacted on sumit.s@ians.in)
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