Rera dismisses ghazal singer Chitra Singh’s refund plea

MUMBAI: The state’s real estate regulator has dismissed a plea made by well-known ghazal singer

Chitra Singh

for

refund

of almost Rs 2 crore in an under-construction project in the western suburbs. The Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRera) maintained that she was an investor and thus not entitled to seek refund under the new law.

Chitra, widow of Jagjit Singh, and her grandson Armaan Chowdhary, had moved the authority to get back their booking amount along with interest from Sai Siddhi Developers. They had paid Rs 1.7 crore in 2013 to book two 3BHK flats in a tower called Sai Pearl being constructed by developer Goregaon, West. Her complaint was that she had in December 2015 requested the developer to cancel the bookings and refund the amount after finding out that construction permission was only for eight floors.

The flats cost Rs 1.04 crore each at the time of booking and Singh had paid most of the amount.

In 2016, the builder issued her cheques which were dishonoured, recorded

Rera

member Vijay Satbir Singh in his order. But, he also observed that “later on, the parties started treating the booking amount as a loan’’ given by Singh and Chowdhary in favour of the builder. Hence, the order said, “It is felt that this authority is not the appropriate forum to deal with such civil disputes.’’ Singh could still move a civil court to claim the amount from the builder.

The authority also found that there was “no violation of any Rera provision’’ that required its interference. The building has two wings: Wing A is of seven floors and Wing B of 21 floors, which have been completed now, said the builder’s lawyer, Karan Bhosale.

Bhosale argued on the preliminary issue of maintainability of her refund plea on the grounds that there was “no agreement for sale executed and hence refund cannot be claimed under section 18 of Rera’’. This section allows buyers to claim refund of amounts paid, if there is a delay in possession from the date mentioned such agreements for sale. Bhosale had argued also that Chitra Singh—who appeared in person with Armaan for the hearing—was “not an allottee’’ but an “investor’’ as she had “accepted payment towards interest on the booking amount from the builder’’.

The singer, who along with her late husband was instrumental in popularising ghazal amomg the masses, said “none of the cheques were cleared for insufficient funds’’. Her case was that the builder “later stopped replying’’. “Since Rera came into place, we though this is the opportunity to get the refund with applicable interest,’’ was her plea.

But Bhosale said that “it was agreed that two cheques of over Rs 83 lakh each drawn in Chitra Singh’s favour in March 2016 were only towards security and not to be deposited.’’ He added that two cheques in April 2016 of “Rs 3.75 lakh each were encashed by the complainants, who thus acted on a memorandum of understanding entered into last March to treat her an an investor and the booking amount as loan to the builder to be returned with interest.” The MoU was signed by the builder and forwarded to her, but she had not signed it, Bhosale admitted. The builder’s case was that in June 2016 too he had called on Singh and Chowdhary to not deposit the cheques, which they however did. These were dishonoured in August 2016.

Bhosale argued that an ‘investor’ has to be treated as a co-promoter, as was held in October 2017 in another case by MahaRera, and not as an ‘allottee’ any longer. The Act only provides for refund of money to allottees—genuine home buyers.

The member in MahaRera essentially then maintained that since she and her grandson were investors, they stood on a different footing from buyers who book a

flat

for their own use.