Above: NCRDC/Photo by Anil Shakya

The embattled real estate major Unitech put up some incredible “facts” to buttress its claim for not only not delivering promised flats on time to home buyers, but also for not paying all dues and penalties. It had even claimed that delay was due to labour shortage and material shortage caused by the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

On Monday (January 29) the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission’s (NCDRC) Justice V K Jain summarily dismissed all such incredible claims and ordered Unitech to pay penalties as well as comply with its deal.

In the complaint, home buyer Monika Pal Sood had said that she and others had booked residential flats with Unitech in a project named “Exquisite”, Nirvana Country-2, Gurgaon.  The sale consideration in all the cases was agreed at more than Rs 1 crore and allotment letters were issued, allotting different flats to the complainants, for the said agreed consideration.

The allotment was followed by buyers agreements executed between the parties.  As per clause 4(a) of the buyers’ agreement, the possession was proposed to be delivered within a period of 36 months from the date of the said agreement.

The possession having not been delivered, the complainants arrived at the doorstep of this commission seeking possession of the apartment allotted to them or in the alternative, a direction to Unitech to provide ready-to-move apartments of identical size in a similar locality or a sum calculated at Rs 10,000 per sq. ft. of the area of the flat, that according to the complainants being market value of similar houses.  They are also seeking interest at the rate of 12 percent per annum from the committed date of possession till the date on which the possession is actually delivered to them besides immunity from escalation in cost and enhanced service tax.

The complaints have been resisted by the OP (Unitech) on several grounds though it has admitted allotment of the flat to the complainants as well as receipt of the consideration from them.   It has been alleged in the written version filed by the OP that the possession of the flats could not be handed over to the complainants on account of reasons beyond its control.

The following according to the OP, were the reasons on account of which the possession could not be offered to the complainants:

1)  There was slump in the real estate market, because of overall economic conditions, as a result of which the supply of labour and raw-material became scarce.

2) There was shortage of labour and the building material due to Common Wealth Games held in October 2010.

3) There was shortage of labour due to implementation of social schemes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and Jawahar Lal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)

4) The use of ground water for building purposes was stayed by Punjab & Haryana High Court vide its order dated 16th July 2012.

5) Restrictions were placed by Ministry of Environment and Forests vide Notification dated 14th Sept 1999 which resulted in the reduction in availability of bricks in the market since manufacture of clay bricks was stopped within a radius of 50 km from Coal and Ignite based Thermal Power Plants without mixing at least 25 percent of ash with soil.

6) The Ministry of Environment & Forest had issued a notification in terms of the National Environment Policy approved by the Government on 18th May 2006 requiring environment clearance. The said notification was published on 14th Sept 2006.

The commission on Monday disposed of the matter with the following directions:

The OP (Unitech) shall refund the entire principal amount received from the complainant in respect of the flat allotted to him along with compensation in the form of simple interest at the rate of 10 percent per annum from the date of receipt of each payment till the date on which the entire amount payable to the complainant along with compensation in the form of interest in terms of this order is refunded.

The OP shall also pay Rs 10,000 as the cost of litigation in each complaint.

The payment in terms of this order shall be made within three months from today.

—India Legal Bureau