Central Min advocates 'Gujarat model' for recovering pending dues from builders

With increasing instances of Real Estate Regulatory Authorityrsquos RERA orders being disregarded across States including Maharashtra by errant builders and developers the Central governmentrsquos Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs MoHUA has directed state governments to adhere to the ldquoGujarat Modelrdquo of executing recovery warrants Civilian activists and watchdog bodies have for long been raising the issue saying that even if the MahaRERA orders a builder to return a homebuyerrsquos moneymdashfor reasons such as not giving possession in timemdashnonimplementation of these orders defeats the purposeThe GujRERA model is currently the talk of the real estate circles with recent amendments in existing laws and strict action empowering the authority to do more than just issue orders The GujRERA has vested officials with powers for execution of recovery warrants and in a first also constructed a civil prison in its premises to arrest and detain errant buildersFeels that measures like the GujRERArsquos civil jail for errant builders need to be adopted in MaharashtraldquoThis ministry has requested six Regulatory Authorities namely Tamil Nadu Gujarat Maharashtra HaryanaGurugram Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh to examine the reasons for noncompliance of orders passed by RERA and further suggest ways to ensure effective and timely execution of said orders as envisioned under RERArdquo the MoHUArsquos notification statedThe Ministry received responses from Tamil Nadu Gujarat and Maharashtra which were deliberated in a Central Advisory Council CAC meeting last year and it was decided to forward the suggestions or best practices of all the States and Union Territories for taking necessary actionldquoDO Demi Official letter dated January 1 2024 was also sent to all StatesRegulatory wherein they were advised to formulate a recovery mechanismappoint a recovery officer under their respective recovery laws on the lines of mechanism adopted by the GujRERA to ensure recovery of dues Alternatively Additional District MagistratesAdditional Collectors may be entrusted with the additional charge as dedicated lsquorevenue recovery officersrsquo for enforcement of recovery orders especially in districts where pendency of such cases is hugerdquo MoUHArsquos notification statedLast year a twomember committee comprising Abhay Upadhyay and MS Shankar President and General Secretary respectively of the Forum For Peoplersquos Collective Efforts FFPCE Kolkata visited the GujRERA office in Gandhi Nagar to study the model They submitted a detailed report to the CAC working under the aegis of the MoHUA Subsequently the CAC on February 6 issued a directive requesting all states to implement the Gujarat modelFFPCE President Abhay UpadhyayThe FFPCE report had detailed how the Gujarat government had in July 2019 appointed two land revenue officers with vested powers conferring the duties of the Collector to them under the Land Revenue code and a retired Registrar General of the Gujarat High Court as its Adjudicating officer Next a civil prison was constructed on the top floor of the GujRERA building In the months to come the GujRERA took strict action against builders in several cases ranging from detaining them in the civil jail to issuing notices attaching their property which served as deterrents Some builders had challenged the action in the Gujarat HC but the GujRERArsquos action was upheld with the HC observing that in some cases there was wilful disobedience of the RERArsquos ordersThe issue was also discussed in a meeting held on January 19 during which the MahaRera on its part opined that considering the huge number of cases spanning various districts it is not practical to delegate the powers of recovery to only one or two officers And that they MahaRERA interact regularly with district collectors to ensure effective implementation of orders passed by regulatory authorities To this Dinesh Kapila the Economic Advisor for MoHUA reiterated that a dedicated revenue recovery officers may be appointed in those districts where the pendency of the cases is highldquoThe recovery of money from developers is crucial and unfortunately the home buyers irrespective of getting favourable orders under RERA do not get their legitimate refunds Maharashtra and rest of the states must take clue from the Gujarat Model of recovery and implement it as endorsed by the MoHUA so that the litigant homebuyers do not have to run from pillar to post and the orders passed by respective State RERAs get executed within the time framerdquo said Abhay UpadhyayHe added that the MahaRERA need to make this a priority due to the large pendency of orders ldquoThis sends out the impression that the RERA has failed to give relief to the homebuyers It is high time that this perception of the RERA in the minds of the common man is changedrdquo he said adding ldquoAnd if need be MahaRERA and other states can send their representatives to Gujarat for understanding the ground functioning of Gujarart model adopted by GujRERArdquo