GUWAHATI: The Assam Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (REAT) has stated that only individuals directly affected by any violations of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, or its associated rules or regulations, are eligible to file complaints with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA).
The statement was made as the tribunal dismissed an appeal from a landowner challenging a prior RERA judgment on Tuesday. Assam REAT, comprising of Justice (Retd.) Manojit Bhuyan, chairperson, and Onkar Kedia, member, decided to dismiss the appeal.
The RERA, Assam, had previously declined to hear a complaint from the landowner against a project builder. The project in question was constructed on her land, and RERA, Assam stated that this issue did not fall under the purview of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016. Dissatisfied with RERA’s decision, the landowner approached the Assam REAT.
Assam REAT, referring to Section 31 of the aforementioned Act, underscored that the complainant should be someone personally affected by any non-compliance of the Act or its associated regulations.
Sating that since the complaining landowner was also a co-promoter of the project, the building permission, granted by the GMDA, was in her name, the tribunal observed that this dispute did not arise from a sales agreement in alignment with the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act.
Earlier, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the landowner and the builder, in which the builder committed to developing an RCC building on the complainant’s land.
The main disagreement stemmed from an alleged breach of the MoU concerning the project, developed jointly by both parties without any monetary commitments.
