Builder yet to pay penalty imposed by RERA
PANAJI
More than ten years after they first paid money for flats and despite multiple orders from the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), the first dating back to 2020, justice eludes nine buyers of flats of an incomplete project at Karaswaddo in Mapusa that was initially scheduled to be completed by January 2018.
The buyers, who by now have filed multiple complaints, including police complaints, had signed agreements with the builder identified as M/s Hirja Constructions, based in Bicholim, who had agreed to construct a residential cum commercial construction at a plot at Karaswaddo in Mapusa by January 2018 with an extension of six months mentioned in the agreement.
However, till date, and despite multiple orders from RERA imposing a penalty on the builder, neither has the builder delivered on the flats, nor paid the penalty as imposed by RERA.
As recently as January this year, Dattaraj K Gauns Dessai, Secretary RERA sent a reminder to the Mamlatdar of Bicholim taluka reminding him that as per the Authority’s order the penalty was to be recovered from the builders as arrears of land revenue, yet the recovery is pending for more than a year with no action from the Mamlatdar.
In an order passed in February 2020, the RERA had ruled that “the respondent (builder did not deliver the flats as per timing mentioned in the Agreement including [the] grace period… Hence the respondent is found responsible for non-delivery of flat to the complainant… in view of the above it is established that the Respondent has contravened the provision of the Act and hence is liable for penalty.”
“The authorities are only sending reminders to each other to recover the penalty or complete the complex within a time frame, which the builder has shown inclination towards doing either. Meanwhile, the buyers who have paid the builder by taking home loans, gold loans or investing their life savings and who are continuing to pay installments… were given false promises every time and we were cheated,” the complainants said in a joint complaint to the police.
