The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked real estate major Unitech to pay Rs 80,000 each as litigation cost to 39 flat buyers within four weeks, IANS reported.

The case was heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud.

The buyers had earlier succeeded in their lawsuit against the company for not handing over flats on time. They had also sought a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each towards mental agony and litigation cost, NDTV reported.

Unitech Vistas in Gurugram’s Sector 70, which has 1,265 apartments, was announced in 2009 and the flats were supposed to be handed over in December 2012. The investors had first approached the consumer forum in 2014, alleging that the project was running behind schedule by three years and was nowhere close to completion. The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission then fined the firm and asked it to hand over the flats to buyers.

Unitech had challenged the forum’s order in the Supreme Court, pleading for leniency.

The Supreme Court in May asked the company to deposit a total of Rs 15.5 crore to the buyers as interest. In August, Unitech Managing Director Sanjay Chandra had told the court that 62 out of 152 buyers who had approached the police against its project had already been paid. On September 8, the apex court again assured the buyers that they would get the refund for their flats, which they had booked in 2009.