Continued from page 01 Members of the Bar Association of MahaRERA and MahaREAT have expressed their displeasure with the move that will u201c cause inconvenience to litigants and professionals practising RERA cases.u201d The Churchgate office will be operational from Tuesday. MahaRERA chairman Gautam Chatterjee will now be operating from the fourth floor of Housefin Bhavan, E- block, BKC, while Dr Vijay Satbir Singh and B D Kapdnis, members and adjudicating officers will be operating from 501, Express building, Churchgate.
Bar Association members had even met Chatterjee in this regard but their request did not yield any result.
Advocate Avinash Pawar, vice president of Bar Association, said, " It is an absurd decision by MahaRERA. It is humanly impossible to attend both offices in a short time. We are also upset with the fact that MahaRERA did not extend us an invitation for the puja at the new BKC office.u201d u2018 Impossible tasku2019 for lawyers On any given day, MahaRERA lists at least 75 to 100 matters for hearing between the four presiding members from 11 am to 5 pm. With two courtrooms shifting to the Churchgate site, it only means that advocates now will have to shuttle between the two locations.
" The number of the cases logged into MahaRERA is close to two lakh now. The numbers will only go up and more courtrooms will be required in the future," he added.
Only a handful of lawyers practise at the MahaRERAu2019s litigation arm since its inception in June 2017, he informed, adding that Section 29 of the RERA Act 2016 entails that the complaints should be disposed of as expeditiously as possible but not later than 60 days from the date of filing.
u201c This seems next to impossible now.
How on earth will anyone be present at two locations, as most of us have matters throughout the day at the MahaRERA,u201d Dsouza exclaimed.
" We had made several representations to the authority and requested them to house the litigation arm under one single building. Four courtrooms or more can easily be managed in one building or even nearby buildings at the BKC site. Yet we have this new juggernaut of an issue. We hope Maha RERA can reconsider our request,u201d he said.
u201c The general administration department and other departments of government have not applied their mind and wasted huge resources of public money on these two offices,u201d advocate Vinod Sampat said.
Some happy with move A few lawyers, however, are happy with the new office set up at Churchgate, " It is close to the Appellate Tribunal MahaRERA and Bombay High Court, and therefore is a welcome move," said advocate Nilesh Gala.
Attempts made to contact Vasant Prabhu, secretary MahaRERA, did not yield any result.
MahaRERA office splits over u2018 personal comfortu2019 With the new officers in BKC and Churchgate, lawyers say it will not only be an impossible task for them to function but will also derail matters A construction site in Ghatkopar. FILE PIC u2018 Some of the advocates have more than 100 open cases easily, excluding group matters, and litigants insist and request that the senior advocate should be present during their case hearing. If the holding clerk or another advocate requests an adjournment, or case is held in the second half, it will only prolong the matteru2019 Anil Dsouza, honorary secretary of Bar association
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