Let various issues get settled: HRERA Member Sihag

HRERA Panchkula Bench Member Dilbag Singh Sihag has said that RERA is a very good statute but it is still in infancy stage. It has gone into some problems, he said. “There are legal issues which have to be settled by various high courts. They’ll go up to Supreme Court as well and it may take up to six months or one year. Once all the issues are settled, lot of things will get clear for every authority”, he said.

Sihag was responding to a query by Realty & More Editor Palash Roy at the 10th edition of Realty Webseries hosted by ICCPL and Realty & More on July 18. 

Roy had asked Sihag, “When you compare yourself with Sebi, or say with RBI, do you feel you have enough power as the banking regulator or the stock market regulator have?

The current conflict, said HRERA Member, is if a promoter goes to an Adjudicating Officer (AO), he says it is not our jurisdiction; the Authority will decide this issue. If the complaint comes to the Authority, it says it’s not within its jurisdiction. It’s AO jurisdiction. “There are certain legal questions which have to be addressed by High Court or the Supreme Court and later on it will give a good relief to everyone”, he said. 

Alok Singh, Founder of the Federation of AoA, Ghaziabad, interjected to say that channel partners and property dealers are also misguiding people a lot. 

Rebutting the comments, Khair Ull Nissa Shah, ED, WTC, said there are lots of checks and balances for this also. “It’s very easy for us to point out that channel partners are giving wrong information”, she said and added, “If you take the example of Dubai’s RERA, it has exercised lot of control over communication with the developers.” 

To Roy’s next question that which is more effective, NCLT or RERA, domain expert Venket Rao replied, “Let’s be very clear that both are completely different forums. RERA is a redressal forum for the real estate projects in terms of recovery of money and seeking possession etc. When we are talking of NCLT, it is not a recovery forum. It is a forum where the liquidity gets hit or the company goes in insolvency.” 

On a concluding note, Ananta Raghuvanshi, Senior ED, Sales & Marketing, Experion, said, “As a developer, we are very happy; we are very happy with the regulatory authority. We are very happy with the uniformity, we feel it is very fair and, of course, as and when there is a need, we can frankly and freely approach them for redressal.”