Realty victims find new forum

In a relief to the victims of real estate frauds, the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) has asked a real estate firm to cough up compensation and to refund the money to the aggrieved home buyers.

Five buyers of Aliens Space Station had approached the NCLT in March this year after the company failed to pay them compensation as per the judgment of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.

The real estate company arrived at a settlement on August 8 to avoid the liquidation procedures.

However, the company has moved the national forum against the decision of the state consumer forum.

Mr Zaheen Mahey, one of the buyers, had paid `29 lakh in installments in 2009. When the company failed to hand him over the flat, he approached the consumer forum in 2015. While delivering the judgment in March this year, the forum asked the real estate company to refund `29 lakh with 12 per cent interest rate and also asked to pay `1 lakh compensation within four weeks. As the company failed to comply with the order, he moved the NCLT.

“NCLT can be approached if the ruling of the court is defaulted by a company,” said advocate Vupputuri Appa Rao.

“If they failed to comply with the order, insolvency procedures will be initiated,” Appa Rao noted.

“It is a new tribunal and this is a major success story for home buyers in the city,” said advocate Gowrishankar.

“More and more people are now coming forward to get back their hardearned money from fraudulent real estate companies,” said Mr Zaheen, who would get `41 lakh after a eightyear struggle.