In 2011, IT professional Narender Yadav had booked his flat at the ‘Ansal Fernhill’ group housing project in Gurgaon’s Sector 91, hoping to get it within six-seven years.
More than 15 years later, he found himself fighting legal battles just to get construction restarted.
“Half my working life has gone into this,” Yadav said. “I was in my 30s when I booked the flat and would tell my children to put off requests to upgrade our rented home because we would soon have a place of our own. Instead, it has been an emotional and mental ordeal for our family.”
However, there is finally reason for homebuyers like Narender to be hopeful.
In a significant relief for around 600-odd buyers, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on July 2 approved a Rs 300-crore resolution plan for the long-delayed Ansal Fernhill project and work is set to resume from next week.
The Tribunal, in a subsequent order on July 24, categorically rejected claims of co-developer Samyak Projects Private Limited, ordering it to hand over peaceful possession of the site and stop obstructing the resolution process.
It also slammed Samyak’s persistent legal challenges and attempts to stall the proceedings as “vexatious” and “a sort of jugglery with the process”, and gave its final seal of approval to the resolution plan propounded by Successful Resolution Applicant (SRA) Krish Infrastructure Private Limited (KIPL).
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The verdicts mark the culmination of a tortuous journey for buyers who poured their life savings into the project between 2011 and 2013, only to see construction grind to a halt amidst alleged financial siphoning, corporate misconduct, and bitter inter-promoter feuds.
Mahesh Jain, homebuyer and chairperson of the Fernhill Homebuyers Welfare Association, called it a big win. “Earlier this week, police accompanied us to the site and served notices to Samyak’s guards to hand over possession, which they are expected to do on Monday morning (August 3). This is a major victory for homebuyers who booked their flats in 2011 after being promised possession by 2018.”
Initially promoted by Ansal Properties & Infrastructure Ltd, the 14.412-acre project in Mewka village offered 712 flats across 14 towers, 28 villas, and 9 shops.
Buyers had collectively paid over Rs 274 crore under a tripartite Builder-Buyer Agreement involving them, Ansal, and the then landowner, Samyak. The project deadline was 2018.
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Two of the towers are 95% complete, and these are expected to be allotted first.
Who gets their flat when?
Under the approved resolution plan, the Fernhill Project will be de-merged into a fresh corporate entity fully taken over and managed by Krish Infrastructure. The NCLT ordered that the moratorium under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) shall cease immediately, clearing decks for construction to resume.
In its July 24 order, the Tribunal advanced and tightened the construction schedule across all phases compared to what the SRA had originally proposed:
-Phase I (Towers A, B, C, D, N, P & shops): Possession to be offered within 10 months from the Real Estate Regulatory Authority’s (RERA) implementation date, advanced by two months from the SRA’s proposed 12-month timeline.
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-Phase II (Towers E, F, L & M): Possession to be offered within 24 months from the RERA implementation date. This brings forward the delivery for Towers E & F by 6 months.
-Phase III (Towers G, H, J, K & villas): Possession to be offered within 34 months (plus a 6-month grace period) from the RERA implementation date. This shaves off eight months off the base 42-month proposal.
The Tribunal directed that allottees who had obtained refund decrees from consumer courts or H-RERA will no longer be forced to accept a cash payout.
Instead, they have been granted an option to either receive a refund of their principal amount with interest or choose unit retention/allotment at par with other buyers.
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Furthermore, the Tribunal ruled that homebuyers cannot be burdened with any insolvency cost beyond a capped Rs 4 crore.
Tribunal cracks down on Samyak
A central feature of the court battle was the role of landowner and co-developer M/s Samyak Projects Private Limited (SPPL).
Samyak had filed multiple applications attempting to block Krish Infrastructure’s resolution plan, asserting its ownership over the project and seeking permission to take over under “reverse Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP)”.
In its July 2 ruling, an NCLT bench of Ashok Kumar Bhardwaj and Atul Chaturvedi expanded the scope of the CIRP to include Samyak’s stake and land, and ordered it to hand over peaceful access, documents, and licences to Resolution Professional (RP) Jalesh Kumar Grover in two weeks.
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The bench observed that both Ansal Properties & Infrastructure Limited (APIL) and Samyak had several obligations towards homebuyers under tripartite agreements.
In its July 24 order, the NCLT Special Bench dismissed all of Samyak’s petitions seeking to push out Krish Infrastructure or take over the project.
Police called in over site obstruction
The legal victory followed tense confrontations at the project site. According to court filings and police complaints, Samyak repeatedly obstructed the Resolution Professional and engineers deployed to restart work.
In a complaint sent to the jurisdictional Station House Officer (SHO) on July 22, RP Jalesh Grover sought immediate police intervention against the “continuing unlawful obstruction and illegal occupation” of the site by Samyak’s private security personnel and bouncers.
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Taking note of these events, the NCLT on July 24 ruled that the builder and its agents are strictly barred from interfering with the RP or the resolution process in any manner whatsoever.
