New Delhi, August 1: India’s top investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), registered 22 cases and conducted searches across 47 locations in the National Capital Region (NCR) on Wednesday as part of a Supreme Court-directed probe into an alleged nexus between real estate developers and financial institutions accused of defrauding hundreds of homebuyers.
The action follows a Supreme Court order in April 2025, responding to petitions from homebuyers who said they were misled by developers and further penalised by banks despite not receiving possession of their homes. The court had directed the CBI to conduct preliminary enquiries into seven matters, of which six have since been concluded, prompting the registration of full-fledged criminal cases.
The FIRs name several major NCR-based builders including Supertech Limited, AVJ Developers, Earthcon Universal Infratech, Rudra Buildwell, Shubhkamna Buildtech, Jaypee Infratech, Vatika Limited, Ajnara India, and CHD Developers, among others. Top officials of these companies are under investigation.
The agency is also probing the role of unidentified officials from multiple financial institutions, including Indian Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Housing Finance, Indiabulls Housing Finance, PNB Housing Finance, Axis Bank, and State Bank of India, among others.
According to the CBI, the developers colluded with banks to promote a “subvention scheme” between 2010 and 2017, which promised homebuyers “No Pre-EMI till possession.” The builders allegedly defaulted on EMI payments from 2018-2019 and failed to complete or deliver projects, leaving homebuyers liable for loan repayments.
In one case involving Supertech, the CBI said banks continued deducting EMIs from buyers despite the project’s non-completion, and in some instances, reported loan accounts as non-performing assets (NPAs), impacting the credit scores of the affected individuals.
Searches were conducted in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Greater Noida, and Ghaziabad. The agency said it will continue probing both the developers and bank officials for their role in allegedly defrauding homebuyers under the guise of innovative loan structures.
The Supreme Court’s intervention marks a rare large-scale crackdown on builder-lender collusion in India’s troubled real estate sector, where project delays and buyer grievances have been mounting for years.
