Amrapali Group’s CEO and Director arrested in Noida
Noida police, on Monday, arrested Amrapali builder’s CEO Ritik Kumar Sinha and director Nishant Mukul over the charges of fraud as the company failed to pay the labour cess to the tune of Rs. 4.29 crore. The District Magistrate B. N. Singh reported to media that the revenue department is running a large scale campaign for revenue collection in the district. In this matter, SDM (Dadri) Amit Kumar Singh and Tehsildar P. L. Maurya took strict action against two core group members of Amrapali Group CEO Ritik Kumar Sinha, and director Nishant Mukul for the nonpayment of labour cess. The SDM Amit Singh said that the action was taken under provision of section 171 of the Uttar Pradesh Land Revenue Code. The company had an outstanding of Rs. 1.99 crore in 2014. However, when they failed to pay, a penal interest amounting to Rs. 83 lakh was imposed besides a penalty of Rs. 1.72 crore. A final recovery notice was issued in March 2017 but when the builder failed to pay up, the action was taken against them on Monday and both the officials of the company have been lodged in the Dadri tehsil jail. According to district administration, the arrest is meant to be a message from the government that defaulters in cases like these will be “dealt with strictly”. Amrapali Group is one of the top three defaulting builders in Noida, which owes the state government Rs. 1,076.81 crore. The group was named by the Noida Authority and details of these companies were uploaded to their website for home buyers to see. The district administration said labour cess is charged for the welfare of labour, which the group had not paid. On June 5, the group was served notice regarding the same, officials said, adding that they were served another notice in the matter. Deputy labour commissioner B. K. Rai warned that they would take stringent action against those who were not paying the labour cess and had already issued recovery notices to another 7 builders in the district who owe the government nearly Rs. 10 crore.
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