CBI alleges 6 instances of bank-builder nexus in Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: A Supreme Court bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N K Singh allowed CBI on Tuesday to register FIRs in six instances of builder-bank nexus allegedly exploiting subvention schemes in the housing sector to harass and fleece thousands of homebuyers while denying them their flats for decades.

The order came after solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati informed SC that CBI had detected cognisable offences.

CBI's preliminary probe, on SC's April 29 direction, covered 21 housing projects, and 19 banks and home financiers. Quoting from amicus curiae Rajiv Jain's report, the bench had underlined that eight banks and home finance companies - Indiabulls Housing Finance, PNB Housing Finance, Dewan Housing Finance, HDFC, ICICI Bank, L&T Housing Finance and Aditya Birla Housing Finance - are involved in 21 projects.

Jain had found that Supertech alone secured over Rs 5,157 crore from banks and financial institutions since 1998. He had suggested investigation into Supertech's links with Corporation Bank, IDBI Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, India Bank, and PNB.

CBI has already registered 22 regular cases against companies, its directors and other unknown bank officials and others. The bench had asked CBI to register one PE to probe projects of Supertech, and a separate one on housing projects under subvention schemes in Noida, Greater Noida, Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority, Gurgaon and Ghaziabad.