To protect the interest of homebuyers on account of insolvency of Jaypee Infratech Ltd. (JIL) the Supreme Court has refused to defer the deadline of October 27 to deposit Rs. 2,000 crore. The holding company Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. (JAL) made a futile attempt before Supreme Court to extend the date for depositing Rs. 2,000 crore.

The counsel appearing on behalf of the developer, Advocate Anupam Lal Das told the court that JIL’s assets are more than its liabilities and the developer is ready to give a guarantee that the interest of each and every homebuyer will be protected. Further, if the JAL is forced to deposit 2,000 crores, it would also become insolvent affecting so many stakeholders and would create problems in addition to that arising from insolvency proceedings initiated against it.

Anupam Das also asserted that both JAL and JIL are sincerely working towards maintaining the working capital requirements to ensure that the money invested by homebuyers is completely secured.

From April till September 2017, JIL has delivered 1,138 homes in addition to 2,942 flats delivered earlier and the developer has promised to deliver another 1,862 homes by December 2017.

In its petition, JAL mentioned that said it was engaged in constructing many high-value government projects and has employed over 50,000 people. The company has to pay around  Rs 700 crore to these employees.“These facts stipulate that JAL is in no financial position to deposit Rs 2,000 crore before the SC.” and hence is claiming for an extension of the deadline.

However, the bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Mishra, A M Khanwilkar, and D Y Chandrachud brushed aside Das’s repeated request and held that the developer will have to deposit the money within the deadline.