Mohali ISBT: GMADA to claim ₹89 crore from developer C&C Towers
Senior GMADA official says claim sought as lease/fine amount as the authority and allottees had not received possession of commercial spaces
The Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) has sought ₹89 crore from C&C Towers Ltd, developers of the Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT Mohali) in Phase-6, Greater Mohali, even as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) special bench in Chandigarh initiated corporate insolvency resolution process against the firm.
A senior GMADA official who did not want to be named, said: “We have sought a claim of ₹89 crore from the company as the lease/ fine amount,” alleging that “the company has cheated GMADA and allottees of the commercial spaces.”
Last year in December, NCLT appointed KPMG International as the resolution professional (RP) to settle the claims of the financial creditors – banks, buyers, public allottees – of C&C Towers Ltd.
RPs are appointed as insolvency resolution professionals to manage the resolution and liquidation processes of a corporate debtor.
₹100 crore invested
More than 472 buyers have invested around ₹100 crore in commercial properties since 2010 at the Mohali terminal.
In 2009 GMADA had signed an agreement with C&C Towers Ltd with the assurance that the project would be completed within 30 months, but deadlines stretched to 11 years and the towers remained unfinished even though the terminus is now partially operational.
C&C Constructions is the parent company of C&C Towers Ltd, which was incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, in March 2009 as a special purpose vehicle of C&C Constructions for design, engineering, finance, construction, operation and maintenance of the Mohali bus terminal-cum-commercial complex (Mohali Junction) on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.
This contract was awarded by GMADA.
According to Harbhajan Singh Jolly, general secretary of the C&C Mohali Junction Clients Association, “what’s frustrating is that criminal cases have been registered since August 2018 against six persons, including chairman, managing director, other directors and chief general manager, but the police has not taken any action till date. We requested senior police officers for action, but nothing has been done,” he said.
The troubled project
The ambitious busopolis project was launched in 2009 and was to be completed in December 2011. Spread over seven acres, it was to have an inter-state bus terminal, three multi-storey towers with retail and office spaces, multiplex, five-star hotel, banquet hall, hyper markets, and a helipad on top of one tower. But since its inception, the project has been mired in controversies and possession delays.