Homebuyers thwart India's quick fix for bad debt

Mumbai

TWENTY-FOUR km east of India's capital lies Jaypee Wish Town, a sprawling 470-hectare site spotted with unfinished residential towers that embody the human cost of the nation's bad-loan mess and point to the difficulty of resolving it.

Jaypee Infratech Ltd, Wish Town's developer, is among the first 12 corporates that the central bank pushed into insolvency court after it was armed this May with new powers to expedite resolution of the nation's more than US$180 billion in soured debt.

Hundreds of homebuyers have filed suit saying the loan-recovery proceedings threaten to leave them without homes or compensation, prompting the Supreme Court to halt the case on Sept 4.

"We are completely at the mercy of the insolvency resolution process," said Avanish Rastogi, a Lucknow resident, who runs a small hardware business and is a co-petitioner in the Supreme …