Suraksha group expects NCLT nod by March to acquire Jaypee Infra; gearing up to start construction

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Mumbai-based Suraksha group on Sunday said the company expects to get the approval of the NCLT by March to acquire Jaypee Infratech Ltd (JIL) through insolvency process and complete around 20,000 flats for homebuyers. In the meantime, Suraksha ARC Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Aalok Dave said the company is making preparations internally to start construction work on all stalled projects soon after the NCLT approval.

On Sunday, Suraksha group held a two-hour long webinar to address the concerns of homebuyers, who are stuck across various projects of the JIL at Noida and Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh. In June last year, Suraksha group received the approval of financial creditors and homebuyers to takeover the JIL, raising hopes for homebuyers of getting possession of their dream flats.

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“The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Delhi is giving top most priority to this case. We expect to get oder by March. It may come earlier also,” Dave told homebuyers. He expressed confidence that the company would get the NCLT approval on its resolution plan.

“Legal hurdles are less this time,” he said. While on the one hand the company was focusing on getting approval from the NCLT, Dave said it was also preparing internally to start the construction works.

“We would like to start work with first given opportunity,” he said. Suraksha group is aggressively hiring executives at senior level to expedite the construction process.

The team is already doing background work like assessing the current status of stalled projects, estimating cost and holding discussions with contractors for deployment of machines and labourers. “We will start construction works on all projects at one go,” Dave said.

In June last year, Suraksha group got the approval of the Committee of Creditors (CoC) to acquire the JIL, after the 10-day-long voting process. Suraksha group won the bid with 98.66 per cent votes and it got 0.12 per cent more votes than NBCC.

As many as 12 banks and more than 20,000 homebuyers have voting rights in the CoC. Homebuyers and creditors have 56.63 per cent and 43.25 per cent voting rights, respectively. Fixed deposit holders have 0.13 per cent voting rights.

This is the fourth round of bidding process to find a buyer for JIL, which went into Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) in August 2017. Anuj Jain is the JIL’s Interim Resolution Professional (IRP). Lenders have submitted a claim of Rs 9,783 crore.

In its final resolution plan, Suraksha group had offered to bankers over 2,500 acres of land and nearly Rs 1,300 crore by way of issuing non-convertible debentures. It has also proposed to complete all pending flats over the next four years.

JIL went into the insolvency process in August 2017 after the NCLT admitted an application by an IDBI Bank-led consortium. In the first round of insolvency proceeding, the Rs 7,350-crore bid of Lakshadweep, part of Suraksha group, was rejected by lenders.

The CoC had rejected the bids of Suraksha and NBCC in the second round held in May-June 2019. In November 2019, the Supreme Court directed that the revised bids be invited only from NBCC and Suraksha.

Then, in December 2019, the CoC approved the resolution plan of NBCC with a 97.36 per cent vote in favour during the third round of the bidding process. In March 2020, NBCC had got approval from the NCLT to acquire JIL.

However, the order was challenged before the NCLAT and later in the Supreme Court. The apex court on March 24, 2021, ordered for fresh round of bidding between the NBCC and the Suraksha group only.