Mid-Day: Mumbai: Tuesday, September 26, 2017.
If you're a
frustrated homebuyer thinking of knocking on the doors of the Maharashtra Real
Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), be warned: There's nobody home to listen to
your complaint. As many as 1,390 complaints related to unregistered projects
have been filed online in the last three months, but RERA is yet to take action
in a single case.
Stuck at
the first step
For those who
have an issue with a property that is not registered, this is just the first
step towards getting justice, as you require a RERA registration number to file
any complaint with the authority.
For such
cases, RERA has set up a separate online forum on which citizens can approach
the regulatory body, seeking action against unregistered projects. But RERA has
not taken action in any of the cases. This means hundreds of citizens can't
even file complaints about their real property issues.
RTI
discovery
This was
discovered by activist Jeetendra Ghadge, who told mid-day, "The majority
of ongoing projects are still unregistered with RERA. It's obvious that
fraudulent developers have avoided registering their projects. Unfortunately,
on the website, we can only file complaints for registered projects. This does
not make any sense."
He filed a
query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, to which he got a response on
September 7, stating: "Though the total number of complaints is 1,390, it
could be lesser, as there are multiple complaints against the same developers.
Also, some are complaints of projects that are already registered under RERA.
Others had not given details of projects, while a few are not even related to
RERA."
The RTI reply
further reads: "The scrutiny of complaints is still going on."
Ghadge
alleged, "The RERA office has intentionally ignored my query asking for
the names of the officials responsible for taking action on these
complaints."
The other
side
Asked to
comment on the matter, RERA chairman Gautam Chatterjee told mid-day to speak to
RERA secretary Vasant Prabhu, who did not reply to calls or messages.
However, an
official from the regulatory body said, "The complaints will be
scrutinised, but phase wise. As there are few more days till the final deadline
for registration, we are waiting for developers to come forward, which has
happened in some cases."
The source
added, "Our priority is to give justice to those who have paid complaint
fees and submitted necessary documents. We will also look at the source
complaints."
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