The Supreme Court of India, in an order dated November 7, 2025, has constituted a one-Judge committee headed by a retired Allahabad High Court judge to find a resolution for a stalled Greater Noida housing project marred by “large-scale siphoning and diversion of funds.” The Court noted that homebuyers “have been struggling in a losing cause for the last nearly 20 years.”
The bench, comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta, appointed Justice Pankaj Naqvi (Retd.) to head the committee. The committee is tasked with identifying genuine allottees, exploring the feasibility of partially restoring the project’s lease deed which was cancelled in 2011, and formulating a comprehensive plan for the project’s completion.
The order was passed in special leave petitions filed by Ravi Prakash Srivastava and others, challenging a 2016 Allahabad High Court order that had declined to grant them substantive relief.
Background of the Case
The case concerns a group housing project, “Shiv Kala Charms,” on Plot No. 7, Sector PI-2, Greater Noida. The land was allotted by the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) in 2004 to the Golf Course Sahkari Awas Samiti (“Samiti”), with a lease deed executed on March 29, 2005.
The project, involving four towers, was entrusted to a developer, M/s Shiv Kala Developers Pvt. Ltd. The petitioners, claiming to be allottees, availed housing loans through tri-partite agreements, and the loan amounts were disbursed directly to the Samiti.
However, after October 14, 2007, the Samiti ceased making payments to GNIDA for the lease. This led GNIDA to issue a final show-cause notice in February 2011, and ultimately, to cancel the lease deed entirely on September 9, 2011.
Subsequent complaints from homebuyers prompted the District Magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, to form an inquiry committee. A report dated March 5, 2012, highlighted “grave irregularities,” finding that:
- Funds received from homebuyers had been “misappropriated.”
- The lease was cancelled due to the failure of the Samiti’s Secretary, SU Jafar, and the developer’s Director, Mahim Mittal, to make payments.
- The committee found that the “same flat has been allotted multiple times to more than one allottee/s.”
- It also found that “fictitious flats which have never existed” had been allotted, and loans were sanctioned against them.
A criminal complaint led to the registration of FIR No. 62 of 2012 by the Economic Offences Wing, Delhi, and a chargesheet was filed against SU Jafar, Mahim Mittal, and others for offences including Sections 409, 420, 467, 468, and 120B of the Indian Penal Code.
High Court and Supreme Court Proceedings
The petitioners first approached the Allahabad High Court in 2016 (Writ-C No. 22576 of 2016) seeking, among other things, to quash GNIDA’s 2011 lease cancellation order, restore the lease, and prohibit banks from recovering loans.
On May 17, 2016, the High Court disposed of the petition, finding “no good ground to interfere” with the lease cancellation. It granted the petitioners liberty to approach the Housing Commissioner regarding the Samiti’s affairs and to “file a civil suit for avoiding the agreement” related to their bank loans.
In the subsequent special leave petitions, the Supreme Court identified the “primary issue” as the restoration of the lease deed. Over the course of the proceedings, the Court directed the Housing Commissioner-cum-Registrar, Cooperative Societies (respondent No. 5) to conduct a “limited enquiry” to identify “genuine members.”
As proceedings continued, a group of 40 allottees filed an application, stating their willingness to join together to complete one tower (Tower-1). A structural audit ordered by the Court found that Tower-1 “can be made fit to be used as habitable” after strengthening.
These allottees submitted they were “willing to discharge all their liabilities towards” GNIDA. However, GNIDA contended that “partial restoration of the lease with respect to Tower-1 alone is, apparently, not in the domain of the Authority,” arguing the lease could only be “cancelled in entirety or restored in toto.”
The Supreme Court, in an order on March 18, 2025, expressed its displeasure with GNIDA’s stance, stating, “We are not happy with the fact that the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority… is not cooperating in the entire exercise of reviving a dead project where the home buyers have been cheated by the builder…”
The Court’s Analysis and Decision
In its final order, the Supreme Court observed that the allottees “have endured immense hardship… apart from losing their hard-earned money and have been embroiled in administrative log-jam and prolonged litigation.”
The Court concluded that the matter has “assumed considerable administrative magnitude and intricacy” and that a “Resolution of all these issues seems unlikely if not impossible in the proceedings under Article 136 of the Constitution of India.”
Finding that the “constitution of an independent Committee under the aegis of a former Judge has become indispensable,” the Court formed the one-Judge committee headed by Justice Pankaj Naqvi (Retd.).
The broad parameters for the committee’s inquiry are:
- To scrutinize all records and “identify the genuine allottees” of the housing project.
- To prepare a list of allottees “who are willing to join together for the development and completion” of the project.
- To “Consult with GNIDA and if required, cull out a solution in respect of partial restoration of the lease deed.”
- If partial restoration is feasible, to “devise a fair mechanism/formula for determining the liability of each allottee.”
- To prepare a “comprehensive plan” for the project’s completion in a time-bound manner.
- To examine the “feasibility and viability of auctioning Towers 3 and 4” if their original allottees are “unidentifiable or unverifiable,” to recover costs and protect the interests of genuine allottees in Towers 1 and 2.
The Court has directed the committee to submit its report in a sealed cover within four months. The State of Uttar Pradesh, GNIDA, the Housing Commissioner, banks, and all allottees “shall extend full assistance and cooperation to the Committee.”
Furthermore, the Court has ordered the State of UP and GNIDA to “publish a public notice… in two national dailies, one in English and one in Hindi” to apprise all allottees, including those not yet before the Court, so they may submit their claims.
The matter is scheduled to be listed on March 24, 2026, for receiving the Enquiry Committee’s report.
