Guwahati, Dec 18: Assessment or payment of property tax for flats in a real estate project is not a relevant factor in deciding whether the construction of the project has been completed, the Assam Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (REAT) made the observation here on Monday.
The tribunal passed the order while deciding an appeal filed by a promoter against an order of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), Assam.
In this case, RERA, Assam had imposed a penalty of Rs 2 lakh on the promoter of a real estate project for failure to register the project as required under sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 read with sub-rule (1) of Rule 4 of the Assam Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules, 2017.
According to the first proviso to Section 3(1) of the Act, in respect of a project which was ongoing on the date of commencement of the Act and for which the completion certificate had not been issued, the promoter was required to make an application to the authority for registration of the project within a period of three months from the date of commencement of the Act. The date of commencement of Section 3 in Assam was May 1, 2017.
According to Sub-rule (1) of Rule 4 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules, 2017, promoters of all ongoing projects which had not received occupancy certificate (OC) by May 1, 2017 were required to make an application to the RERA for registration.
In the present case, although construction of the project had commenced much prior to the enactment of the Act, the promoter received the OC from Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) only on June 22, 2021 after paying compounding fees for the deviations made from the sanctioned plan.
The promoter had submitted an incomplete application for OC to the GMDA on December 17, 2016. The Tribunal rejected the promoter’s claim for deemed OC after 21 days of submission of the application as per section 11(b) of the Guwahati Building Construction (Regulation) Act, 2010 on the ground that the deemed OC could be assumed only if the construction had been completed as per the approved plan which was not the position in this case.
The promoter had also argued that the mere fact of payment of property tax of all the flats for the year 2015-2016 was itself indicative that the construction of the project stood completed by 2015-2016, which was prior to the date on which Section 3 of the Act was brought into effect.
The Tribunal held that OC had not been issued to the project in terms of the first proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Act and this being the clear position, any issue of payment of property tax or assessment of the flats had no relevance or bearing to the adjudication of the present appeal.
The order was passed by Justice (retired) Manojit Bhuyan, chairperson, Assam REAT, and Onkar Kedia, member, Assam REAT.