The Gujarat Real Estate Regulatory Authority (GujRERA) has ordered that four persons of a construction group, Pacifica Developers, be taken into civil custody, after they did not obey an order to give a flat to a buyer, Rachana Sharma, who was living in Muscat in 2012.
Not only did the builder not give the flat to the purchaser, he sold it to a third party despite a RERA’s order. This led the authority to take action against the builder and three of his associates for disobedience of an order and for misguiding the authority.
GujRERA ordered Rakesh Israni, MD of Pacifica Developers Pvt Ltd and his three associates – Darpan Tarwani, Kaushik Patel and Jay Chandani – to be detained in the civil prison at the GujRERA headquarters in Gandhinagar for a period of 30 days for wilful disobedience of specific directions given by the RERA authority in 2019.
The complainant’s lawyer, Nipun Sanghvi, and chartered accountant Mahadev Birla said, “Pacifica Developers Pvt Ltd had launched a residential project known as ‘Reflections’ at Khoraj in Gandhinagar. A flat was booked by Rachana Sharma in November 2012 and the sale price was fixed at Rs 56.67 lakh and Rs 9.82 lakh was to be paid for charges to agencies such as AUDA, AEC, UGVCL, for parking, stamp duty, maintenance etc. The agreement for sale was executed in July 2014.
The buyer had paid Rs 15.24 lakh in cash (not proved) and Rs 41.43 lakh through bank and the possession of the flat was to be handed over by October 2015 but she was not given possession and the developer did not execute sale deed in her favour.
She approached RERA and the authority in August 2019 directed the developer to execute the sale deed in favour of the applicant and to hand over possession of the flat on payment of dues of Rs 18.69 lakh and other charges by the applicant-allottee within 30 days of the order. The applicant had paid the amount but the developer cancelled her booking and then sold the flat to one Lalita Patel. GujRERA has ordered civil prison for the developer and his three associates.”
