Stern message for civic authorities

The Supreme Court’s order on Supertech’s twin towers in Noida is a clear message to the civic authorities that they cannot ride roughshod over and trample the rights of citizens. In a damning assessment of the role of the Noida Authority in this entire episode, it is a welcome relief for harried homebuyers that there is still scope for them to get their grievances heard. It is a big win for homebuyers and the biggest message is for civic authorities here is that they can’t play footsie with builders and not give two hoots to the rights of hassled citizens. At least 20% of the corporate insolvency resolution process proceedings are from the real estate sector. This clearly indicates the extent homebuyers face harassment at the hands of developers.

Buying a home in this country is a financially and emotionally draining experience and unfortunately, the high-handedness of builders and civic officials add to their pain. The apex court has rightly cut the civic body down to size and this verdict should serve as a stern warning to everyone that consumers will get justice no matter how powerful the nexus is between private entities and unscrupulous government officials.

Builders should hopefully also learn lessons from this episode and not adopt a bulldozing strategy against consumers. Their existence depends on homebuyers and the more they try to squeeze them, the bigger will be their problems.

Homebuyer activists point out how many developers easily get deadlines extended without sufficient reasons. The extensions cause immense difficulty and financial stress on the buyers. Quite frequently, collusions between the authorities and developers are behind these extensions. There is no data on how many of the projects were completed within the deadline and how many were granted extensions. In every extension the homebuyer has to undergo a lot of stress during the entire period of extension that he/she never factors in.