Builders have approached the Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh high courts challenging some of the key provisions in the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA), including bringing all "ongoing" projects under regulation and penalties for failure to register such projects, the Times of India (TOI) said in a report on Sunday.
The two separate groups of builders have contended that the RERA provisions have retrospective effect since the projects were started when there was no such law and hence it's illegal, the TOI report said.
While Builders and Developers Welfare Association has filed a PIL in Madhya Pradesh High Court, Swapnil Developers has challenged provisions of RERA in the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court. These cases are coming up for hearing in the next one week.
The builders are challenging sections of the RERA law, particularly those that put old projects — started before the law was passed and are yet to be completed — under the ambit of the regulator.
A Hindustan Times (HT) report said that both the high courts have asked the Centre to respond to the petitions, which argues that Section 3 (which says ongoing projects must be registered) is applied retrospectively and therefore violates constitutional safeguards.
The builders have also challenged Section 59, which defines penalties for violations, HT said.
"With the deadline to register ongoing projects ending in a week and the Centre unlikely to give an extension, developers are getting edgy," sources in the Housing and Urban affairs ministry, which piloted the law, told HT.
@SJRPrimeCorp @ndtv @FightForRERAInd@TimesNow
— dipta dey (@dips_dey) July 22, 2017
No ETA on project completion,buyers waiting more than 5 years !#sjrpalazzacity
builders are sucking the last penny of investors ; in the name of fake VAT demands before GST that too on 30 June; todays infrastructure
— Akash Sehgal (@AkashSehgal14) July 21, 2017
Dilution of RERA 4 ongoing projects in Kar causing harm as builders r forcing 4 registration @OfficeOfRG @FightForRERAInd @ndtv @PMOIndia
— sadhusant (@krishnasinghani) July 21, 2017
@PMOIndia @myogiadityanath 1000+ buyers Amrapali dreamvalley GreaterNoida west suffering as delay project. Plz help, hard earned money stuck
— Chetan Wadhwa (@chetansoul) July 18, 2017
Sources in the housing and urban affairs ministry told TOI that RERA is not a law with retrospective effect since it covers all projects, which have not got completion certificate by May 1, 2017. Secondly, the penal provisions would come into effect only after the law came to existence, they said.
A government official told TOI that the law came into force in March 2016 and the builders had enough time to complete their ongoing projects. "The law says the builders will have to give fresh timeline while registering all projects including the ongoing ones," the official said.
The housing sector in India has for years been beset by problems, the most stark of which are the cases with hundreds of thousands of homebuyers who have made significant payments but are yet to receive possession of their houses. Parliament last year passed a law to regulate the sector, setting up a real estate regulatory authority (Rera) for disputes in new and existing, incomplete projects.
