Today, On 19th March, The Supreme Court intervened in the issue of an abandoned housing project in Greater Noida, seeking a resolution for affected homebuyers. Senior Advocate Ravindra Kumar, representing the Authority, requested a week’s time to submit financial details. The Court’s directive aims to expedite the process and provide relief. This step brings renewed hope for buyers awaiting possession of their homes.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court instructed the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority to assist homebuyers in restoring an abandoned housing project.
The Court requested that the Authority provide details of the financial demands it would have imposed had the original builder completed the project, allowing for proportional charges to be calculated for each homebuyer based on their apartment sizes.
The incomplete housing project is linked to a cooperative housing society that had leased the land from the Authority but failed to fulfill its financial obligations, even after collecting funds from homebuyers.
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Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta of the bench expressed criticism towards the Authority for its lack of cooperation in the revival efforts.
The Court remarked,
“We are disappointed with the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (referred to as ‘Authority’) for its lack of cooperation in the effort to revive a stalled project where homebuyers have been deceived by a builder who disappeared decades ago. Some homebuyers have united to partially revive the project, while others are joining in to restore the remaining sections,”
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Senior Advocate Ravindra Kumar, representing the Authority, requested a week to supply the necessary financial information.
The society, Golf Course Sahakari Awas Samiti Ltd, applied for land allotment from the Authority, which was approved in 2004 for Plot No. 7, Sector Pi-2, Greater Noida, Gautam Budh Nagar.
However, homebuyers later claimed that the Society, in collusion with financial institutions, defrauded them by halting payments to the Authority. Many had secured bank loans to purchase flats in the project.
Homebuyers initially turned to the Allahabad High Court to contest the Authority’s 2011 order terminating the lease deed. Subsequently, an FIR was filed against the directors of the Society.
In a 2016 ruling, the Allahabad High Court upheld the Authority’s decision to cancel the lease, citing the Housing Society’s failure to pay dues. Unhappy with this outcome, homebuyers escalated the issue to the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to present a roadmap for investigating the alleged “builder-bank nexus” that has reportedly defrauded thousands of homebuyers in the National Capital Region (NCR).
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A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh observed that numerous homebuyers were affected by subvention schemes, where banks disbursed 60 to 70 percent of home loan amounts directly to builders, despite the projects not being completed on schedule.
Under these schemes, banks were meant to release funds to developers, who were responsible for covering the EMIs until the flats were delivered. However, when builders defaulted, banks shifted the burden of payments onto the homebuyers instead.
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