The judicial rescue of the stalled Amrapali housing projects stands as one of the brilliant historic structural remedies executed by the Supreme Court of India. By replacing a defaulted promoter with a Court Receiver mechanism and deploying state-owned National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) as the project execution agency, the Apex Court provided hope to more than thirty-five thousands stranded families when all other institutions have either remained silent spectators or chose inaction. Now this writer has seen in the newspapers about the issuance of possession letters to 51 families of Leisure Valley Adrash Awas Yojna project. The handing over ceremony was held on 23rd October 2026 in presence of Court Receiver (CR) and Attorney-General Sri R Venkataramani and NBCC CMD Dr KP Mahadeva swamy. The NBCC is in the process of completing all 24 projects in Phase I and so far around 13,000 crores works have been completed. This writer knows the capacity and technical capability of the NBCC from the time when he was Principal Secretary under the govt of Tripura when he awarded them construction under the Indo-Japan international project. Now they have forayed abroad as an multinational by opening an office in Australia. 

Under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court, the NBCC completed construction work across multiple phases and handed over physical keys to their apartments. The buyers who had endured over a decade of financial distress—paying both monthly home loan EMIs and,house rents—expressed relief at the culmination of their long wait.  Mr R Venkatramani soon after taking charge did an unprecedently splendid job in mobilizing financial and other resources in record time. The NBCC CMD Mr Mahadeva Swamy and his team also to be commended for showing exemplary leadership in completing difficult task of bringing the totally collapsed projects to life. I had personally met Mr Venkataramani and Mr Mahadevaswamy in 2024 and congratulated them for the wonderful job. In this regard we must not forget the leadership of Mr Amit Gupta and his colleagues on behalf of home buyers who took this matter to the Supreme Court. I had supported them by writing series of articles in national newspapers exposing the inaction of Noida bureaucracy. 

However, at ground zero—particularly in complexes like Amrapali Centurian Park—the noble objectives of the Supreme Court are running into severe operational headwinds. A growing disconnects between administrative mechanisms, execution boundaries, and resident governance threatens to derail the benefits of this high-level intervention. While NBCC’s mandate remains strictly confined to completing baseline construction and physical key handovers, day-to-day estate management and operational civic facilities often fall into an administrative vacuum. The Office of the Court Receiver, designed to oversee high-level financial flows, regulatory approvals, and project completion, was never structured to function as a daily property management office. As a result, individual grievances submitted by home buyers frequently go unacknowledged. Compounding this institutional bottleneck is the prevalence of unrecognized, "ad-hoc" Apartment Owners Associations (AOAs) who have been squabbling all the time due to inexperience and personal agendas. Lacking statutory standing under the UP-Apartment Act, these interim bodies often slide into localized politics, financial opacity, and internal factionalism, leaving residents without effective, accountable representation.

Now new challenges have surfaced across several delivered blocks, including seepage, incomplete common amenities, parking allotments, maintenance disputes, and transitional operational friction. As home buyers move into their units, post-handover operational and construction-related issues frequently arise. Below are urgently needed actionable recommendations to effectively address these challenges.

i) A thorough snagging (a technical term used for inspecting the construction) audit is necessary before possession sign-off for which NBCC and Court Receiver need to hire an independent civil engineer or home inspection service to carry out a comprehensive "snagging list" audit (checking wall seepage, plumbing leaks, electrical wiring, tile hollows, and door/window sealing) as large numbers of these complaints are a regular feature. The auditor should submit a formal signed snagging report to the NBCC site office before signing final satisfaction notes or moving furniture in.

ii) The Office of the Court Receiver has explicitly stated that NBCC's primary role is project execution, while day-to-day maintenance transitions to resident bodies. But before this Court Receiver office need to direct NBCC to take steps for many unresolved issues. The Home buyers must escalate this to A0A, then to NBCC and then to Court Receiver. It is not out of place to mention that NBCC had taken over the   De facto as well as De jure responsibility of the builder. 

III)    There should be no room for the Ad hoc A0A and Court Receiver office must ensure to formalize a registered, transparent Apartment Owners Association (AOA) under the UP-Apartment Act, 2010. There after the AOA should oversee the joint inspection and handover of common facilities (elevators, power backup, fire safety equipment, basements, and STP units) from the contractor.

IV) The maintenance agencies should be hired by the NBCC till full-time regular AoA are constituted because the existing Ad hoc arrangements in Centurian Park Terrace Home have become a joke and a concert of musical chair to grab power. The Court Receiver must take note of totally mismanaged Terrace Home AoA due to power game being played by rival groups. This AoA has become unmanageable due to large numbers of flats of different sizes. This AoA must be divided into two AoA. One for A Block which have more than 250 flats of higher areas and other for B and F blocks. The entrance and Exit can be separated by NBCC. All attempts should also be taken to finish the completed projects by ensuring registration with sub-registrar office.

V) A formal Handover Cell comprising representatives from the Court Receiver’s Monitoring Committee, the NBCC Site Director, and the President/Secretary of the formally elected AOA must operationalise. This task force would clearly demarcate NBCC's statutory defect-liability obligations while smoothly transitioning daily operations, security, and maintenance corpus management to the democratically elected AOA. An intervention that set a national precedent for protecting homebuyer rights cannot be allowed to stall in its final mile. Strengthening democratic resident representation, streamlining communication channels, and maintaining firm judicial monitoring will ensure that Amrapali Projects achieves both structural completion and sustainable, accountable governance.

VI) Last but not the least, if systemic responsiveness issues persist, homebuyer groups should aggregate ground-level facts into a unified Interlocutory Application before the Supreme Court Bench oversight panel. Direct judicial intervention remains the ultimate tool to ensure that executive authorities and project administrators adhere strictly to the Court’s original vision. 

(Author, a former IFS officer, is the Chairman of Centre for Resource Management and Environment)