Unitech Limited is an Indian

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more genera ...

investment company headquartered in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the NCT Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati B ...

,The New Mantra for Reality sector

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language b ...

. and once claimed to be the largest real estate builder in the country. The company is based in

and ranks 1484, in

Forbes Global 2000 The ''Forbes'' Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world, published by ''Forbes'' magazine. "The Global 2000" annual ranking is assembled by ''Forbes'' using a weighted assessment of four metrics: sales, profi ...

listing of the top 2000 public companies in the world by

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

magazine, 32nd in India.Special Report:Forbes Global 2000

, The Global 2000. 04.02.08 Its construction business includes highways, roads, powerhouses, transmission lines, and it has residential projects called Unitech Cities/Uni World, in cities like Mumbai, Delhi,

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar (; ) is the capital and largest city of the States and territories of India, Indian state of Odisha. The region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as ''Ekamra Kshetra'' (area (''kshetra'') adorned with mango tr ...

, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mohali, Bangalore, Kochi, Noida, Greater Noida, Agra, Lucknow, Varanasi, Gurgaon, and Ghaziabad. Past Join Ventures: LG - Unitech Hyundai - Unitech Singapore Consortium - Unitech Carlson (Radission) - Unitech

History

Founded by 5 partners, Ramesh Chandra, Dr. S. P. Shrivastava, Dr. P K Mohanti, Dr. Ramesh Kapur and Dr. Bahri originally formed as United Technical Consultant Private Ltd in 1972 as a soil investigation company.Unitech supremo: A reluctant tycoon

, 26 Jan 2008. They later moved into civil engineering contracts in 1974. The company began to enter into real estate in 1986, and started to increase focus on real estate in 2000. Few year back, it was India's second-largest listed real estate firm. Unitech had formed a large joint venture with Norway-based Telenor Group to create Unitech Wireless Ltd., in August 2009, it secured a 50 billion rupee ($1 billion) loan from

State Bank of India State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational public sector bank and financial services statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is the 49th largest bank in the world by total assets and ranked 221st in the '' Fort ...

(SBI.BO) to fund its mobile phone network rollout. In 2011, due to the 2G-spectrum controversy (explained below), the company got involved in a public spat due to which its Chairman Sanjay Chandra al while on bail over

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norway, Norwegian majority State-owned enterprise, state-owned multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the List of mobile network ...

's pressure to do so, followed by news of Unitech's settlement of issues by agreeing to sell its entire stake in the Unitech Wireless to shift the business to a new entity owned by the former almost 1 year later and then Telenor shifted the erstwhile United Wireless' entire assets into a newly formed

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

as its majority-owned subsidiary Telewings Communications Services Pvt. Ltd., another

joint-venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

which 26% stake was owned by an investment firm named Lakshdeep Investments & Finance Pvt. Ltd. and rest of the 74% owned by Telenor directly, thus sealing the end of Unitech's presence into

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than tha ...

s so far, only after 15 days since last development. Unitech Wireless is one of the accused in the

2G spectrum case The 2G spectrum case was a political controversy in which politicians and private officials of the United Progressive Alliance coalition government India were involved in selling or allotting 122 2G spectrum licenses on conditions that prov ...

. It is alleged that they were able to attain 2G licenses by bribing officials in the Indian Government even though they didn't have any previous telecom experience. As a fallout of this they had a total of 22 licenses cancelled by virtue of a court order, and their Managing Director Sanjay Chandra sent to jail. In March 2017, Sanjay Chandra, who had been out on bail in the 2G case, and brother Ajay were arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police for allegedly duping home-buyers in a

Gurugram Gurgaon (pronunciation: �ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: �ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...

project. Till date both are in jail. On October 21, 2019, The

Noida Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (India) ...

Authority has cancelled the allotment of a group housing property to crisis-hit realtor Unitech over non-payment of dues worth Rs 1,203 crore. In December 2019, the apex court has asked the central government to take over the management of the company, Keeping in mind the interests of about 30 thousand home buyers. The court has also directed the government to investigate the matter from various agencies including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after Unitech and its directors revealed that thousands of crores of flat buyers had been diverted by the forensic report. The court has also flatly refused to grant bail to Unitech directors Chandra brothers, the apex court has asked the government to appoint the current directors of Unitech as independent directors.

References

{{reflist

External links

Unitech Group website

Supreme Court mandated Claim Submission Portal for Unitech Buyers
Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange Real estate companies established in 1972 Construction and civil engineering companies of India Real estate companies of India Companies based in New Delhi Economy of West Bengal 2G spectrum case Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1972 Indian companies established in 1972