'MahaRERA needs to have grievance redressal mechanism'

Taking cognizance to issue of delayed hearings faced by litigants and professionals practicing in MahaRERA the bar association of MahaRERA has insisted on the need for having a grievances redressal mechanism and additional law officers to be appointed on an urgent basis for the quasijudicial tribunal to function smoothly and moreover for resolving inconvenience caused to thousands of litigants awaiting justiceSpeaking to midday Advocate Anil Drsquosouza Secretary MahaRERA Bar Association said ldquoRevisiting the number of cases piling up is extremely critical There are several areas that need to be addressed on a war footing by MahaRERA especially when the QuasiJudicial body will be entering the sixth year of its formationrdquoAppointment of more benchesAdvocate Drsquosouza said as per Section 21 and section 22 of RERA Act itself Composition of Authority states that ldquothe Authority shall consist of a Chairperson and not less than two full time MembersrdquoWhich clearly means any number of benches more than two can be appointed Inspite of the sheer volumes of cases since the last five years at any given point of time MahaRERA consisted of only three maximum four benches and the present situation is that only two benches including the Chairman are functional with over 6000 cases pending This is an extremely critical angle and MahaRERA must appoint more benches as the cases pending for the first second date has reached alarming proportions And litigantsrsquo ire is palpableAdvocate Anil DrsquosouzaTo Augment this criticality MahaRERA opened up positively to ConciliationldquoBut then again cases started getting clogged there too for first second hearing and this is now even scarier than the cases piling up for adjudication as complaints willingly opted for conciliation but the first date of conciliation itself is nowhere in sight It is extremely important to understand this situation and address this bottleneck as MahaRERA has created good benchmarks in the past With every passing dayweek and month the situation is getting worrisome Litigants feel Advocates are not doing justice to the brief And the heat is deflected towards the advocatesrdquo claims Advocate DrsquosouzaMahaRERA needs to have a Grievance redressal mechanismAdvocate Drsquosouza added ldquoFor any Institution to grow constructively and to continue building faith and trust constant monitoring auditing and improvisation is essential More so for a regulatory body which is also bequeathed with sacrosanct quasijudicial functions MahaRERA must incorporate a Grievance redressal Mechanism more like an Ombudsman in large entities Where feedback can be documented processed and improvisation is incorporated Feedback on every case filed should reach the Authority and steps should be taken to clear the backlog Every single case represents a helpless flat purchaser and his family who put their hope and trust in the judiciary nowrdquo ldquoCareful attention must be paid to the time lag between the filing and the next dates of hearing With gaps between dates increasing from a few months to more than a year now for a hearing these alarming time gaps are putting immense stress pressure and anxiety on the helpless flat purchaser Already the poor man is burdened by delay in possession now the date for the hearing is also stretched towards a year or more With bank EMIs and rentals hitting him hard where does he go This delay in hearing dates has multiple legal repercussions weaving in he saidFear of poor cibil scoresSince complainants have opted to exit the project due to insurmountable delay they canrsquot afford the EMIS and somehow default on payments on projects which do not have any promise of completion left This affects the flat purchasers CIBIL score the lending yard stick for banks and financial institutions and hurts them in future loan probabilities In one of our cases some third party has entered the complainants flat to the utter shock of the complainants The sixth year of Maha rera should focus on clearing the pile up and present more hope and In still more confidence in the taxpaying MumbaikarMore helping hands need of the hourldquoPromotersbuilders are taking advantage of this honeymoon period between the dates and sending termination notices upon the hapless flat purchasers with clauses on forfeiture of amount that he has already paid In one of our cases the Promoter has even taken repossession of the flat and we had to rush to DRT Pune Debt Recovery Tribunal for a stay on the possession proceedings initiated by the builder Bar Association of MahaRERA advocates is ready and willing to shoulder this monolithic task and shoulder this responsibility with MahaRERA where required More and more judicial officers or even retired judicial officials can be hired to help clear this backlog added DrsquosouzaExpert viewldquoMahaRERA not having an internal grievance mechanism is by itself a failure of the very existing of Qasi Judicial body under the ambit of RERA Act formulated to give justice to common man and to bring transparency MahaRERA should have a grievances cell where the litigants can lodge their complaints even against MahaRERArsquos style of functioning At times orders are intentionally delayed by MahaRERA and some officers do not pass the order within the stipulated time What I would like to emphasize is a simple mechanism should be there whereby automatically the grievances which are pending after say one month should be displayed on the RERA website with full details of the same Moreover the hearings which are conducted by MahaRERA should be live streaming of hearings so that the members of the public get an idea of how things are going on in MahaRERA It should not be confined to the parties for virtual hearing It should be made available to anyone on demandrdquo said Advocate Vinod Sampat founder and president of Flat Users Residents Welfare AssociationAdvocate Vinod SampatldquoAll hearings conducted by RERA should be displayed on the website of MahaRERA The hearings of RERA should be live streaming so that apart from professionals even the common man would know what to expect from MahaRERA hearings Moreover that will also give a level playing field for the flat purchasers who are not having ample resources to match the resources of the builders Once the hearings are life streamed the common man will be better educatedrdquo Sampat saidSampat added ldquoThere is an acute need to increase the number of benches of MahaRERA MahaRERA must dispose of all cases within two months which was increased to three months to ensure speedy justice MahaRERA should send signals to builders that new projects of builders who are chronic defaulters would not be approved Moreover MahaRERA should issue a circular that at least 1037 of the constructed area should be sold by builder only after possession of Flat with conveyance and Full occupation certificate is given in favour of legal entity The said area should be specifically marked on the builders web page stating that these flats can only be sold after execution of conveyance as well a full occupancy certificate is obtained by the builder and handed over to the legal entity of flat purchasers This is the only way to introduce accountability to buildersrdquo