Mumbai builder made to pay 5L for fraud

[RajaRC]

Mumbai builder made to pay 5L for fraud
Rebecca Samervel, TNN, Jan 6, 2011, 03.24am IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-builder-made-to-pay-5L-for\
-fraud/articleshow/7226076.cms

Mumbai builder|fraud case|Consumer court


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.