By I C Naik
As per Mumbai TOI report of 21 1, 2016 a builder was ordered to pay 49 flat buyers Rs 10,000 each. The builder was found guilty of causing more than two year’s delay in completion of the residential project in Mumbai. The district consumer redressal forum directed a developer to pay a compensation of Rs 10,000 to each of 49 flat buyers who signed the petition.
Going by the Apex Court ruling that the remedies under Consumer Protection Act is in addition to any other remedy available under any statute. The forum rejected the plea that the arbitration clause in the agreement debarred the consumer forum’s jurisdiction to entertain the dispute between flat owners and developers. The Bench was presided by the President Sneha Mhatre and a member Madhuri Vishwarupe which ordered Devidas Vaingankar a partner with the Shree Sai Krupa Organisers, the developer to make the payment within two months.
There are other complaints that at the time of giving possession, the developer failed to complete work of the complex and the buildings and also did not provide land records to the flat buyers, the complainants. Reportedly more serious is the accusation that the builder took a sum of Rs 28,000 from each flat buyer towards registration and society formation but did not form a housing society.
Complaint for compensation was filed by 49 members of the Shree Sai Sagar Complex, housing in Kalwa who will get partial redressal. The others will not. As such the forum kept the doors open as regards other disputes and demands and reportedly observed in its order that the society could approach the appropriate authority or file a suit in the court of law.