Exercising the powers under Section 35 of the RERA Act, 2016, the authority can suo motu by an order in writing call a real estate agent at anytime to furnish in writing such information or explanation relating to the concerned affairs as the authority may consider fitting so that inquiry relating to the relevant affairs can be done. The authority shall have the same powers as of a Civil Court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 to discover and production of books of accounts, summoning and enforcing the attendance of persons, and any other relevant matter.

Therefore, 2 examples of the recent judgments passed by the MAHARERA authority have been described below:

Example No.1:
1. A recent order passed by MAHARERA dated 04 September, 2019 directing to pay the penalty of Rs. 80,000 to Wisteria Real Vision Pvt. Ltd. for the violation of Section 10 (a) of the RERA Act, 2016.
2. The authority has issued a notice to the agency u/s 35 of the RERA Act, 2016 to appear before the authority and explain its actions of facilitating the sale of apartments of unregistered real estate projects.
3. Following the principle of natural justice, the agency has been given full opportunity to defend. The consequence of which the agency had admitted to inadvertently shared the details of the project in Pune and tendered to the unconditional apology of not soliciting, misguiding or engaging in such facilitation of advertisements or sell in the near future.
4. Therefore, it has submitted an affidavit dated 29^th August, 2019, such violation will not happen in the future and it would strictly comply with all the orders and directions.
5. After considering all the circumstances, the authority imposed a penalty of Rs. 80,000 for 8 days of the violation, starting from 21^st August, 2019 to 28^th August, 2019 with a further warning of not repeating such violation in future.

Example No. 2:
1. This is also a suo motu (on own) matter taken by MAHARERA authority of charging a penalty of Rs. 40,000 on Mystica India, an agent who has facilitated the sale of apartments in the unregistered project of Godrej Properties Ltd. in Kalyan by circulating numerous SMS.
2. The promotions were relating to the billboard advertisements which showed that the agency has violated the provisions of Section 10(a) of the RERA Act, 2016 and therefore the authority has issued a notice to appear before the authority and explaining the matter by following the principles of natural justice.
3. The authorised representative of the agency submitted that it has inadvertently shared the details of the said project by tendering an unconditional apology and provided an undertaking dated 23^rd August, 2019 that such violation will not happen in the near future.
4. Therefore, considering all the situations, the authority has imposed a penalty of Rs. 40,000 for 4 days of violation starting from 21^st August, 2019 with a warning of not such violations in the future.

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Tags: Godrej Properties, unregistered real estate projects, MAHARERA.