New Delhi (PTI): Observing an "unholy" nexus between the banks and developers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the CBI to register a preliminary inquiry into projects of realty major Supertech Limited in NCR.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh took into account an affidavit filed by CBI and directed the UP, Haryana DGPs to give a list of DSPs, inspector, constables to the agency to constitute a special investigation team (SIT).

The top court further directed the CEOs/administrators of Greater Noida Authority, Noida Authority, secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and RBI to notify one nodal officer from among their senior-most officers within a week to extend necessary assistance to the SIT.

The apex court previously said thousands of homebuyers were affected by the subvention scheme, where banks paid 60 to 70 per cent of the home loan amount to the builders without projects being completed within the stipulated time.

The apex court had then ordered the CBI to submit a roadmap on how it planned to unravel the "builder-banks nexus" which duped thousands of homebuyers in the NCR and proposed to go into the root of the matter.

The top court was hearing a batch of petition filed by several homebuyers, who booked flats under subvention plans in various housing projects in NCR region especially Noida, Greater Noida and Gurugram, alleging that they were being forced by banks to pay EMIs despite no possession of flats.

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Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.

The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.

Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.

The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.

India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.

In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.

Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.

The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.

It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.

Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.

The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.

The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.

On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.