The Delhi high court on Thursday held that the Real Estate Appellate Tribunal has no powers to initiate suo motu proceedings and quashed one such move that banned any construction activity in the capital unless the project was registered with RERA.
“This court finds itself unable to appreciate the omnibus direction which ultimately came to be issued by the appellate tribunal. The appellate tribunal clearly and abjectly failed to bear in mind the true ambit of Section 3. It proceeded on the incorrect and unfounded premise that all projects were liable to be compulsorily registered under the Act,” justice Yashwant Varma noted, setting aside two orders passed by the tribunal last year.
HC pointed out that the suo moto proceedings by the tribunal “practically injuncted all construction activity in the NCT of Delhi.”
Justice Varma faulted the tribunal for not conducting any enquiry with respect to the validity of a particular project “or even a prima facie assessment or evaluation of the validity of a single project” before passing a blanket order.
“In fact, the order does not even take note of a proven or evident violation of the Act’s provisions by a particular project. This court is constrained to observe that the procedure as adopted by the appellate tribunal can neither be countenanced nor accorded an imprimatur,” it said, allowing the plea filed by a builder.
HC concluded that “there was a patent lack of jurisdiction and the proceedings as drawn by the appellate tribunal are liable to be quashed in entirety.”
It stressed that the tribunal had no power or authority to initiate proceedings suo motu or on its own motion.
In November last year Delhi’s Real Estate Tribunal stayed all construction activity on unregistered projects, taking note of Delhi Police’s stand that it is investigating at least 27 FIRs registered against societies/individuals fraudulently offering the membership of housing projects.
