Recent Consumer Case : Builder Made to pay 5 Lakh for fraud

[s1joshi]

This was published in TOI on 6th Jan 2011

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 226076.cms

MUMBAI: A consumer court order has cheered scores of home-buyers who are misled or even duped by unscrupulous builders.

Thirteen years ago, a retired Indian Oil executive and his son booked a flat in Goregaon (east) in a project advertised as exclusive homes for exclusives and which promised amenities like a pool, a garden, a community hall, a playground, a kindergarten school and jogging tracks. However, the ground reality turned out to be entirely different. Not only have they not got most of the amenities they were promised but their complex is still surrounded by hutments and they do not even have an occupation certificate (OC).

Some relief, however, has come by way of the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission order. Compensating the Roys for the mental harassment and agony for not getting their dream house, it ordered the builder, Ravi Ashish Land Developers, to pay Rs 5 lakh. In addition to this the builder was also ordered to pay Rs 1,000 per month from August 1998 till the actual procurement of the OC. This amounts to nearly Rs 1.48 lakh. The builder will also have to pay the Roys Rs 25,000 towards the cost of litigation.

The Roys, father Pradip Kumar and son Anirban (a lawyer), claimed that they had paid the entire cost of the 825-sq ft super built-up area of the flat amounting to Rs16.5 lakh to the builder within five months from the date of issuance of allotment letter on March 5, 1997. According to the Roys, the builder had assured them that there would be a seven-storey building with three wings, Arpan, Darpan and Samarpan, and three towers, namely, Deep, Darshan and Maharaja Retreat, and 12 row houses in the Gaurav Empire Housing Complex and there would be a proper road and amenities like adequate street lights, a flower-decked landscaped garden, a club house and a community hall, playgrounds and a kindergarten school, etc.