{"id":337,"date":"2020-11-03T08:14:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T08:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ethicallegal.in\/?p=337"},"modified":"2020-11-03T08:14:32","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T08:14:32","slug":"if-real-estate-project-gets-delayed-home-buyers-can-approach-consumer-court-as-well-as-rera-says-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/2020\/11\/03\/if-real-estate-project-gets-delayed-home-buyers-can-approach-consumer-court-as-well-as-rera-says-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"IF REAL ESTATE PROJECT GETS DELAYED, HOME BUYERS CAN APPROACH CONSUMER COURT AS WELL AS RERA, SAYS SUPREME COURT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, 2nd<\/sup>\nNovember 2020, the bench comprising of Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Vineet\nSaran in its judgment held that Section 79 of the RERA Act does not in any way\nbar the Commission or Forum under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act\nto entertain any complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supreme Court on Monday\nruled that homebuyers can approach consumer forum as well as RERA if a builder\nfails to deliver a real estate project on time. Home buyers who have not got\npossession of their houses within the contract time period are free to approach\nthe consumer forum for compensation from the builder in addition to Real Estate\n(Regulation and Development) Act proceedings, says Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was, however, urged\nthat going by the objective or the purpose for which the RERA Act was enacted\nand considering the special expertise and the qualifications of the\nChairpersons and Members of the Authority (Section 22) and the Appellate\nTribunal (Section 46), such authorities alone must be held entitled to decide\nall issues concerning the Project registered under the RERA Act. It was\nsubmitted that if the allottees were to be permitted to initiate parallel\nproceedings before the fora under the Consumer Protection Act, the financial\ndrain on the promoter would render completion of construction an impossibility\nand, therefore, the RERA Act in general and Section 89 in particular be\nconstrued in such a way that all the issues pertaining to the concerned project\nbe decided only by the authorities under the RERA Act. Even with acceptance of\nsuch interpretation, the allottees would still be entitled to approach the\nauthorities under Section 18 of the RERA Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apex\ncourt said that it is true\nsome special authorities are created under the RERA Act for the regulation and\npromotion of the real estate sector and the issues concerning a registered\nproject are specifically entrusted to functionaries under the RERA Act. But for\nthe present purposes, we must go by the purport of Section 18 of the RERA Act.\nSince it gives a right \u201cwithout prejudice to any other remedy available\u2019, in\neffect, such other remedy is acknowledged and saved subject always to the\napplicability of Section 79.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bench has said that\nif the contract has been violated, the rights of the homebuyers cannot be said\nto be deferred simply because the registration period under RERA still\ncontinues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has consistently been\nheld by this Court that the remedies available under the provisions of the Consumer\nProtection Act are additional remedies over and above the other remedies\nincluding those made available under any special statutes; and that the\navailability of an alternate remedy is no bar in entertaining a complaint under\nthe Consumer Protection Act, Observed the bench, which also pointed out that the\nsection 100 of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 which specifically says that\nthe provisions of this Act shall be in addition to and not in derogation of the\nprovisions of any other law for the time being in force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judgment was passed in\na case filed by real estate developer M\/S Imperia Structures Ltd, which had\nlaunched a housing project in Sector 13C Gurgaon. The homebuyers approached the\nNational Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in 2017, as no construction had been\nstarted on the project even after 4 years. The NCDRC passed its Judgment in\n2019, and directed the developer to refund the amounts deposited by the\npetitioners with simple interest of 9% pa from the respective dates of deposits\ntill the date of realisation plus Rs 50,000 to both Consumers as cost of\nlitigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company approached the Supreme Court claiming that since the project was registered under RERA, the homebuyers could not have approached the Consumer Forum. In addition, the company argued that the “homebuyers” were not “Consumers” under the definition of the Consumer Protection Act, since they had purchased the properties as investment for commercial purpose and not for residential purpose. Both the arguments were rejected by the Supreme Court. The Apex court also imposed additional costs of litigation on the developer, directing them to pay 50,000 rupees each to the homebuyers, in addition to the cost imposed by the Consumer Forum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For your <\/strong>queries<\/strong>\nrelated\n<\/strong>to RERA, <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Contact RERA Lawyers in Faridabad Gurugram NCR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For your queriesrelated <\/strong>to RERA, contact RERA Lawyers in Faridabad Gurugram NCR<\/strong>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, 2nd November 2020, the bench comprising of Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Vineet Saran in its judgment held that Section 79 of the RERA Act does not in any way bar the Commission or Forum under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act to entertain any complaint. Supreme Court on Monday ruledRead more about IF REAL ESTATE PROJECT GETS DELAYED, HOME BUYERS CAN APPROACH CONSUMER COURT AS WELL AS RERA, SAYS SUPREME COURT<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethicallegal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345,"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethicallegal.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}