Housing ministry writes to Khattar over RERA ‘dilution’
The Union housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) ministry has taken strong exception to BJP-ruled Haryana government for delaying the notification of a law, meant to protect homebuyers from unscrupulous developers, and diluting several provisions in its draft rules, in an apparent bid to favour developers.
Rao Inderjit Singh, the junior housing minister who is also a MP from the state wrote to Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar last week that dilution of the landmark realty law is in “violation” of the provisions of the central law and will be “open to legal challenge and liable to be struck down by the courts.”
The proposed rules will also deprive the home buyers of ongoing projects the benefits of the law that was passed by the Parliament to protect consumer interest, Singh cautioned.
“…any dilution of the Act would not be appreciated by the millions of home buyers in the state who have been waiting for long to get relief under the Act,” Singh has written.
Though the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act covers all ongoing projects that have not received completion certificate, Haryana has tweaked its draft rule to keep out majority of such projects.
Also, the draft rules allows developers to not disclose PAN details, annual statement, land ownership etc, as mandated under the Act. Home buyers in Haryana have been up in arms against developers for not fulfilling the promise to deliver completed flats on time.
The SC last October had pulled up realty firm Unitech and ordered it to refund ₹16.5 crore to 39 buyers who have invested in its Vista project years ago. Even junior I&B minister Rajyavardhan Rathore who had bought a flat in Gurgaon had to knock the court’s door last November after he was given possession of the flat that he claimed was “uninhabitable.”