After nearly twenty years of dashed hopes and legal limbo, hundreds of families who invested in Greater Noida’s ill-fated Shiv Kala Charms project may finally see a way forward. The Supreme Court has stepped in, appointing a one-member committee led by former Allahabad High Court judge Justice Pankaj Naqvi to unravel the mess and pave a path for completion.
The long-stalled project—born in 2004 out of a partnership between the Golf Course Sahkari Awas Samiti and M/s Shiv Kala Developers Pvt. Ltd.—was meant to rise as a modern housing complex. Instead, it became a monument to broken promises. Funds were allegedly siphoned, deadlines missed, and in 2011, the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) pulled the plug by cancelling the lease for non-payment of dues. Criminal cases soon followed, but little changed for the homebuyers left stranded between half-built towers and legal quicksand.
Over the years, the Court has issued several interim orders, urging GNIDA and the Registrar of Cooperative Societies to sort through the chaos. Some allottees even volunteered to restart construction themselves, willing to put in more money just to reclaim their homes. Yet, bureaucratic indifference and procedural entanglements kept the site frozen in time.
Describing the ordeal as an “administrative log-jam,” the bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta noted that homebuyers had been “struggling in a losing cause for nearly two decades,” victims of both deceit and neglect. The Court concluded that only an independent, focused inquiry could cut through the years of inertia.
The newly appointed Justice Naqvi Committee has been tasked with reviving the project from the ground up—identifying genuine allottees, drafting a plan for partial lease restoration, coordinating with GNIDA, and exploring options to auction unclaimed flats to cover costs. The committee has four months to file its report and will operate from New Delhi or Noida, backed logistically by the Uttar Pradesh government and GNIDA.
Half the expenses will be borne by the State and the remaining by the allottees, many of whom have already lost much more than money. Justice Naqvi will receive a fixed honorarium of ₹15 lakh, disbursed in three stages.
The Court has also instructed authorities to issue public notices in English and Hindi newspapers to ensure all affected buyers are informed of the process.
For hundreds of weary families who once dreamed of calling Shiv Kala Charms home, this intervention may finally bring an end to two decades of silence, scaffolds, and unkept promises.
