The Supreme Court has instructed the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority to cooperate with homebuyers in reviving an abandoned housing project.

The Court has sought details from the Authority regarding the financial demands it would have imposed if the original builder had completed the project. This information will help determine proportional charges for each homebuyer based on their apartment size.

The project was left incomplete after a cooperative housing society, which had leased the land from the Authority, failed to clear its dues despite collecting funds from homebuyers.

A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta criticized the authority for its lack of cooperation in efforts to restart the stalled project.

"We are not happy with the fact that the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (hereafter referred to as 'Authority') is not cooperating in the entire exercise of reviving a dead project where the home buyers have been cheated by the builder who has vanished decades ago and some of the home buyers have joined together to revive the entire project in part and also other home buyers are coming in for revival of the remaining part of the Project," the Court observed.

Senior Advocate Ravindra Kumar, appearing for the Authority, sought a week's time to furnish the required financial details.

The Golf Course Sahakari Awas Samiti Ltd had applied for land allotment from the Authority, which was granted in 2004 as Plot No. 7, Sector Pi-2, Greater Noida, Gautam Budh Nagar. However, homebuyers later alleged that the Society, in collusion with financial institutions, defrauded them by ceasing payments to the Authority. Many of these homebuyers had taken bank loans to purchase flats in the project.

Initially, homebuyers challenged the Authority’s 2011 order terminating the lease deed before the Allahabad High Court. Subsequently, an FIR was registered against the Society’s directors.

In 2016, the Allahabad High Court upheld the Authority’s decision to cancel the lease, citing the Housing Society’s failure to clear its dues. Dissatisfied with the ruling, homebuyers escalated the matter to the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to present a roadmap for probing the alleged "builder-bank nexus," which has reportedly defrauded thousands of homebuyers across the National Capital Region (NCR).

A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh observed that thousands of homebuyers had been impacted by subvention schemes. Under these schemes, banks disbursed 60-70% of home loan amounts directly to builders, despite project delays.

As per the scheme, developers were responsible for paying the EMIs until the flats were delivered. However, when builders defaulted, banks shifted the financial burden onto homebuyers instead.