New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked Chief Secretaries of all the States to respond to the queries raised by the Centre on implementation of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) (RERA) Act, 2016 rules in their jurisdiction.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant said that in March 2022 the Centre has written to all the States seeking certain information with regard to the agreement of sales rules notified under the RERA Act and their compliance but only five States have so far responded to it.
In order to facilitate the exercise carried out by the Union of India, we direct all the chief secretaries to respond to the queries raised with RERA rules on or before May 15 , the bench said.
It added that Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati and amicus curiae Devashish Bharuka will file a status report after receiving all the relevant information from the States.
The bench posted the matter for further hearing in the third week of July.
At the outset, the bench asked amicus about the status of the report to which he said that they have received some responses from the state governments and some deviations were found and he has asked for the reasons for such deviations.
He said that so far only five states have responded to the queries raised by the Centre with regard to the RERA rules.
The bench said it is posting the matter for further hearing after the summer vacation and till then more responses from States will come.
It said that once the report is prepared it will direct the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to upload it on its website.
Bhati assured that it will be done.
On February 14, the top court directed the Centre to examine whether the rules framed by various States under RERA Act are in conformity and subserve the interest of home buyers.
It had given three months to the Centre to examine if there are any deviations in the rules framed by the states to the rules framed by the Centre in 2016 and to place the report by the first week of May 2022.
It had appointed advocate Devashish Bharuka as amicus curiae in the plea by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay seeking implementation of a builder-buyer agreement to safeguard the interest of home buyers and requested him to assist the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to examine the rules framed by the states.
The top court noted that the central government shared the draft ‘agreement for sale’ in 2016 after the enactment of RERA with all the states and Union Territories and currently West Bengal, Jammu, and Kashmir, and some north-eastern states are yet to notify the rules.