EXPLAINER: The ₹800 Crore Question Hanging Over Sikka Group's Sector 98's Mall of Noida

A plot allotted in 2009. Dues that were never cleared. A mall that was supposed to open in 2023. Here's what the CBI is actually investigating — and why it matters to anyone who bought a shop there.

What is the project?

Mall of Noida (also marketed as Sikka The Downtown) is a mixed-use commercial development in Sector 98, on the Noida–Greater Noida Expressway. It has been sold to buyers as a destination mall — retail shops, food court, multiplex, office space — with possession dates that have moved from 2023 onward. It is one of the most heavily advertised commercial addresses on the Expressway corridor.

What is the CBI looking at?

Three things, according to officials cited in reports from late May.

First, alleged irregularities in how the land was allotted and subsequently transferred. Second, roughly ₹800 crore in dues that the Noida Authority says remain unpaid. Third, an allegation that money collected from buyers who booked shops and office units was routed into other ventures rather than into this one.

The agency took up the matter on directions from the Supreme Court — which is the detail that separates this from a routine recovery dispute. This is not the Authority chasing a defaulter; it is a court-mandated criminal inquiry.

How did a 2009 allotment become a 2026 investigation?

The paper trail, as described by officials, runs like this:

2009 — The Noida Authority allots a 22,000 sq m plot in Sector 98 to Expansion Construction Pvt Ltd for ₹109 crore. Only about 10 per cent of that amount is deposited.

2011 — The plot is split into two parcels, held under Three C Complex Pvt Ltd and Granite Hills.

Later — The Authority takes back the Three C Complex parcel. The Granite Hills parcel is allegedly transferred to Sikka Group without the Authority being informed and without transaction records being placed on file.

May 2026 — CBI questions two officers of the Authority's commercial department at its Delhi office for close to three hours, and seeks records from the planning and accounts departments.

That gap — allotment in 2009, dues still outstanding in 2026 — is the heart of the case. Nearly seventeen years of a premium expressway plot sitting with a developer who, on the Authority's own numbers, paid a fraction of what he owed for it.

Why are Authority officials being questioned, not just the builder?

Because the question the CBI has to answer is not only "why weren't the dues paid" but "why was nobody made to pay them." A transfer of leasehold land without the lessor's knowledge does not happen in a vacuum. The summoning of commercial department officers, and the demand for planning and accounts files, signals that the inquiry is looking at the Authority's own conduct as much as the developer's.

Is this an isolated case?

No, and that is the larger story. The Noida Authority has become a standing item on the CBI and ED docket. In March 2025 the CBI registered three FIRs over the Sports City projects in Sectors 78, 79 and 150, a matter the agency pegged at around ₹9,000 crore in loss to the exchequer, acting on Allahabad High Court orders. The ED has separately been active on Noida builder cases. The recurring pattern in these files is the same: land allotted cheap, conditions breached, sub-leases changing hands, dues left unrecovered, and buyers' money in the middle of it.

What does this mean for people who bought units?

Nothing has been adjudicated. No conviction, no attachment, no order affecting individual allottees has been reported. But buyers in a project where the underlying land dues are disputed sit in a structurally weak position, because clean title and completion certificates ultimately depend on the developer squaring accounts with the Authority. Anyone holding an allotment letter here should be pulling their RERA registration status, payment records, and builder-buyer agreement out of the drawer and having a property lawyer look at them.

What to watch next

Whether the CBI converts the preliminary inquiry into an FIR; whether more Authority officials are summoned; whether the Authority moves to cancel or repossess the Granite Hills parcel as it did with the Three C portion; and whether the Supreme Court sets a reporting timeline on the probe.