RERA

I beg to differ. Section 3(2)(a) of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (“RERA”) carves out two exceptions under which projects do not require registration under RERA. The Section unambiguously states that if for a project, the area of land to be developed does not exceed five hundred square meters or the number of apartments proposed to be developed does not exceed eight inclusive of all phases, such project would not require registration. A converse of this section would imply that projects that are being developed on land area exceeding five hundred square meters and where the number of apartments is more than eight, would require registration.

The intention of the section is to exclude small projects from the purview of RERA so that developers of such projects are not burdened with the requirements of registration, maintaining a web page and separate construction account etc. under RERA. This is based on the premise that in smaller projects the customers/allottees are able to monitor the day to day development and management of the projects and coordinate with the developer at a personal level as against larger projects where the transparency and personal accountability of the developer towards each customer/allottee are missing.

The very intention of excluding smaller projects from the purview of RERA would stand defeated if it is assumed that a project having more than 8 apartments but being developed on a land area less than five hundred square meters would require registration under RERA. The threshold of eight apartments was finalised after considerable deliberations ever since the RER Bill was introduced in the year 2013 and even earlier when the concept of the law was first propounded in 2009. Therefore, the threshold of land area and the number of apartments have to be read in consonance with each other. Hence, the said Section 3(2)(a) proposes that both conditions need to be breached by a project to render it liable for registration under RERA. It would be ironical to assume that a single bungalow constructed for sale on half acre land would also require registration under RERA.

In view of the above and the clear language of the Section, we feel that the Section cannot be interpreted to mean that if either of the two conditions is not met, the project would require registration