By SRELJ
Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed its operation of an Order passed by the Punjab Real Estate Regulatory Authority for “palpably wrong” circular during the Covid lock down period for extending the term of projects whose registration had expired.
The Bench observed that the circular “may even give protection to those promoters and builders whose registration may have expired long back”. The Central Advisory of RERA had already suggested to state RERAs to give extension of six months for projects which are completing after 25th March 2020 and a further extension of three months on case to case basis.
The Bench comprised of Mr Justice Rajan Gupta and Mr Justice Karamjit Singh had stayed the order in the matter where a a petition was filed against the Union of India and other respondents by r Vinod Kumar. He was aggrieved by circular dated May 13 2020, whereby Punjab RERA extended by six months the validity period of registration of projects.
Pleading before the Bench, the counsel for complainant contended that ostensibly the circular was issued to give relief to projects whose registration was expiring by March 15. But even the term of projects, whose registration had expired long back, had been extended by six months by the virtue of impugned circular.
The Bench observed that the Bench failed to understand the need for passing an “omnibus order” giving protection to all projects in the state, irrespective of whether the registration is expired long back or due legitimately and particularly when the Act had a specific provision for entertaining applications on behalf of promoters/builders for time extension.