Allahabad High Court Directs CBI To Lodge Complaint Against Noida Sports City Project Authorities
By Rajesh Pandey
The Allahabad High Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to lodge a complaint against all conniving officials of NOIDA authority and the allottees/builders involved in allotment, development and sanction of Sports City Project and any other person who may be involved in the NOIDA sports city scam.
In another order, the high court also directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to make all endeavours to find out the trail of siphoned/misappropriated money so that same may be brought back into the concerned company and with that the outstanding dues of NOIDA authority, state government, additional compensation to the farmers and other dues my be paid off.
The court delivered three judgments on February 24 in the case of M/S Three C Green Developers and three other cases, covering Sports City projects in NOIDA.
Disposing of the writ petition filed by M/S Three C Green Developers, a division bench comprising Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prashant Kumar observed, “This case exposes a significant nexus of corruption between builders and Noida Authority officials, resulting in gross violations of public trust, fraudulent practices, and possible financial losses amounting to around 9000 crores to the Noida Authority as per as per the CAG report. In that context, this case requires us to address past actions and their consequences as well as future recourse”.
From 2010-11 to 2015-16, four sports city projects were launched by NOIDA on a total area of 798 acres, in which three golf courses, one cricket stadium of international standards, and other sports facilities of international standards were planned.
This case – M/S Three C Green Developers pertains to one of those four projects where no development on the sports facility has taken place but the allottees/ builders have already monetized the part of the project that was meant for recovery of cost incurred to build the sports facilities.
As per the formulated scheme, NOIDA sometime in the year 2011 launched the project of “Sports City” which was to be developed in Sectors 78, 79 and 150 of NOIDA. The scheme was launched on March 3, 2011 and closed on March 24, 2011.
The reserve price for the scheme was set at Rs.11,500/- per square metre. The developer was supposed to create sports facilities over seventy percent of the entire land area, which was not marketable, and to set off this expense in developing the sports city, the developer was allowed to construct group housing on 28 percent and commercial on 2 percent of the total land.
Since the possession of the entire allotted land could not being given, the allottees made a representation for granting the benefit of Zero Period from the date of allotment to the date on which the actual physical possession has been given.
The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the Noida was obligated to provide possession of the entire land, construct, develop and provide the required infrastructure, access and approach road to the Sports City, which has not yet been developed by it.
