Pune: The Forum for Peoples’ Collective Efforts, a nationwide homebuyers’ association, has raised concerns over the MahaRERA ’s decision to form a conciliation forum to resolve disputes between the homebuyers and the builders in Maharashtra. In a letter addressed to the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs’ additional secretary Satinder Pal Singh, the association’s president Abhay Upadhyay said MahaRERA lacked the legal authority to create such a forum, and the move could lead to a ‘conflict of interest’. The letter emphasised the need for the ministry to develop and issue comprehensive guidelines to ensure that the conciliation forum operated independently and impartially.
Upadhyay said the ministry should investigate the constitution, functioning and orders of the conciliation forum to determine if its conduct and ecosystem favoured builders. “MahaRERA has constituted a conciliation forum for amicable settlement of disputes between promoters of real estate projects and allottees under Section 32 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 (RERA). It merely gives power of recommendations to the authorities and not the power to constitute such a forum itself,” the letter stated.
The association also said there were no details available of proceedings passed by the conciliation forum on the MahaRERA website. Advocates representing RERA cases said many second hearings had been delayed. Lok Adalats must be encouraged, instead of forming conc.