Supreme Court upholds NCLAT order entrusting Supertech’s 16 unfinished projects to NBCC

The court noted that the beleaguered real estate major had booked over 50,000 homes for delivery between 2010 and 2012 but many have remained incomplete.

It asked NBCC to complete the work expeditiously, as suggested by an expert committee put in place by the NCLAT. It also asked the committee to cooperate with the corporation.

The SC further directed tribunals and high courts not to pass any order that can stall the work on the projects. The court said that the apartments should retain all promised facilities like water, electricity and drainage.

Remarking that its foremost priority was to protect the interest of homebuyers, who have been waiting endlessly for booked flats for two decades, the bench said that concerns of creditors will be taken care of only after the flats are handed over to the homebuyers.

The SC also made it clear that the creditors will have to accept a haircut as deemed “just and equitable” by the insolvency tribunals. Haircut in proceedings under IBC 2016 refers to the difference in amount which the creditors have to give up from their claim in the event of the borrower company being unable to repay it.

Issuing notice on appeals challenging the NCLAT order, the SC had on February 21, 2025 stayed the order, saying that it will examine whether the tribunal “was right in awarding the work of construction etc to NBCC (India) Ltd without following the procedure prescribed under” IBC. In May 2023, the SC had refused to interfere with the NCLAT’s order that adopted a project-wise resolution of Supertech. The tribunal had in March 2022 admitted the company to insolvency for default of Rs 431 crore to a consortium of banks led by the Union Bank of India.