The Supreme Court on Tuesday sent to police custody three directors of the Amrapali Group for not handing over accounts-related documents of 46 companies to forensic auditors.
A bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit sent Anil Kumar Sharma, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar to the police custody, observing that there was blatant and deliberate violation and non-compliance of its orders that had asked the directors of the construction company to submit the documents.
The court took a dim view of the conduct of the directors, after one of the forensic auditors told the bench that all that the company had furnished were documents relating to only 6 of the 46 companies.
"Why this hide and seek and the violation of the compliance of our order? Whatever they (forensic auditors) want, it should be handed over by today," Justice Mishra said.
The documents supplied to the forensic auditors include two internal audit reports of the real estate group pertaining to 2008 to 2015, but nothing from 2015 until 2018.
Directing the Delhi Police to take the assistance of Noida Police and seize all necessary documents, Justice Mishra said, "It is a blatant violation of the orders passed by this court" and "If you fail to give any documents, you will not come out of this (custody)."
The apex court issued a contempt notice, asking the three to explain as to why they did not comply with the court's earlier orders.
It also ordered the directors to surrender their passports. The order also mandated that they surrender passports of their nominees.
"If they want to live in dignity, then they (the directors) should hand over all the documents immediately", Justice Mishra said.
The court warned the three directors that the threat of arrest was looming large over them. "You are in great difficulty, if you don't comply. We are in action. This will not be tolerated even for an hour. You don't play with the court."
The court reminded the Amrapali directors that they were in the wrong as far as principles of law and administration were concerned as "you have not prepared accounts for 2015 till 2018.
The court posted the matter for the next hearing on October 23.
--IANS
pk/shs/vm
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