In a landmark judgment with far reaching consequences, Bihar RERA has issues arrest warrant against three builders. This could easily be termed as a historic judgment of RERA. Why so? It is because the eco system of the complex business of Indian real estate has been such that builders continue to take RERA for granted. For the large universe of erring builders, RERA stands out as another window of litigation that only helps them to prolong the buyers legal fight without any accountability, forget about fear of the regulation called RERA.
I have raised the issue of RERA not serving the casue of the helpless home buyers for long. You can watch that with my earlier videos on RERA with Track2Realty YouTube Channel. Last year in the month of May, when RERA had completed 7 years, I had raise 7 unanswered questions that defeated the very purpose of RERA.
But now it is time to welocme the decision of RERA. Labelled as toothless tiger by the home buyers at large, such judgments have been few and far between that could force the builders to get out of their comfort zone of defaults.
It is a harsh reality that even the well-intentioned judgments of RERA don’t give the home buyers any respite. Across the country, RERA passes orders in favour of the home buyers against project delay penalty or refund, but then the order is not executed. It just gets dust in the office of District magistrate or Collector. The Allahabad High Court had recently even summoned the District magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar over non-execution of RERA orders.
There is absolutely no mechanism of follow-up to monitor whether RERA judgment is being executed or not. If the home buyer is not running from pillar to post to get justice, such orders end up as only paper decree. And RERA limits its role to just pass an order.
It is noteworthy here that RERA has powers to send builders to jail for non-compliance of its orders. But builders don’t take RERA orders seriously. And it has even been noted that many of the RERA member lack legal acumen as well. In an RTI asking whether RERA members (mostly ex-bureaucrats) have any legal training, the reply was that no such information is available.
And hence home buyers don’t get the due justice with RERA, unless they are wlling to go for a lengthy & costly litigation. The need of the hour is to instill the fear of RERA in the minds of the large universe of builders. They should be fearful of being sent to jail. Most of the builders that I know are scared to face jail, but still show bravado as they are aware of the ground reality where cases drag for long without it affecting their wealth or happiness.
Jail term, even the treat of it, would be a big deterrent to force the builders fall in line. Of course, even if RERA issues warrant, the builders have the option to challenge it in the tribunals and higher courts or Supreme Court. But at least they should have a threat hanging over their heads. This is not something that would be arbitrary, as we have seen with a few cases in recent past. For example, in 2022 the Gurugram bench of Haryana RERA had ordered 60 days of civil imprisonment against ILD Builders over contempt of court for not honouring its orders.
It is true that builders get relief at the higher courts against such harsh RERA orders. But at least they are forced to immediately move to higher courts to avoid getting arrested. That itself will force the large universe of defaulter builders to take RERA more seriously and comply with its orders. In May this year, RERA will complete its 8 years of existence. It is high time that more such orders, like Bihar RERA, are delivered. Even more important is that a few of such cases could set precedent and make RERA as competent authority as it was conceptualised in its initial stages.
Will RERA stand out and be counted? Well, I can only hope.
Ravi Sinha
#RaviTrack2Media
Ravi Sinha is a journalist with over two decades of cross-discipline media exposure. He is the CEO of real estate thinktank group Track2Realty. He has been writing extensively on the real estate sector for more than a decade now. Evaluation of real estate brand performance is his core domain expertise and he has immense insight into consumers’ psychograph. He has conceptualised Track2Realty BrandXReport as India’s 1st & only objective & non-paid brand rating journal that is industry-accepted benchmark of brand equity & ranking of the Indian real estate companies.
Track2Realty is an independent media group managed by a consortium of journalists. Starting as the first e-newspaper in the Indian real estate sector in 2011, the group has today evolved as a think-tank on the sector with specialized research reports and rating & ranking. We are editorially independent and free from commercial bias and/or influenced by investors or shareholders. Our editorial team has no clash of interest in practicing high quality journalism that is free, frank & fearless.
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