The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to forthwith take over the management of real estate giant Unitech by appointing independent directors after a forensic audit revealed that home buyers’ money worth over Rs 5,000 crore had been diverted to tax havens such as Cyprus, thereby affecting the completion of at least 74 projects and damaging the interests of 12,000 customers.

A bench comprising Justices D. Y. Chandrachud and M.R. Shah dismissed the bail plea of Sanjay Chandra, managing director of the group, and some others who have been in jail since August 2017 in connection with the alleged fraud.

“We would now expect the Union of India to act proactively in the matter and inform this Court on the next date of hearing on the steps which it initiates to replace the existing management and ensure that the management of Unitech Limited is handed over to an independent group of directors who can fulfill the mandate and responsibility of attending to the concerns of the home buyers by completing the remaining projects,” the court said.

It also directed the Centre to take “all necessary steps to ensure that a proper investigation is carried out by the law enforcing machinery since large amounts which have been collected both from the home buyers as well as from the financial institutions have been prima facie found to have been diverted, siphoned off and mis-appropriated”.

The court also directed that certain maturing fixed deposit amounts deposited with the Supreme Court registry should be reinvested.

“The office report dated 17 December 2019 indicates that an amount of Rs 7,99,50,000 has been deposited (with Supreme Court registry). The amount must be kept in a fixed deposit of a nationalised bank offering a higher rate of interest for a period of one year. According to the office report, three fixed deposits are maturing on 24 January 2020 and 27 January 2020. These should also be renewed for a period of one year with a nationalised bank offering higher rate of interest,” the bench said in a written order on Wednesday.

It posted the matter for further hearing to January 17. The court said the Centre should file its response on or before January 15.

The forensic audit carried out by Grant Thornton revealed that Unitech had raised a sum of Rs 13,364.55 crore from home buyers.

Out of this, Rs 5,063.05 crore – 40 per cent of the collections – were not utilised by the Unitech group for the construction of the 74 identified projects.

Moreover, the forensic auditors were not able to ascertain outflows aggregating to Rs 2,389.73 crore and whether this had been used for the construction of the projects because of limited information that was available.

The apex court order could affect the Unitech board meeting scheduled on January 4 which has been called to consider the unaudited financial results for the quarter and half-year ended September 30.