CUTTACK: The State government has assured the Orissa High Court that the Housing and Urban Development department has prepared the draft Odisha Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Amendment Rules, 2022 and the same would be notified within a month. The new rules have been drafted for effecting necessary modifications in the agreement for the sale of houses and making it compliant with the RERA Act, 2016.
While submitting the assurance, Advocate General AK Parija on Wednesday stated that after vetting by the Law department, steps would be taken to notify the amended rules in the official gazette of Odisha by observing necessary procedural formalities. The steps should be completed within four weeks, the Advocate General stated.
Taking note of it, a division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Chittaranjan Dash said, “It is expected that the government will adhere to the above time schedule”.The notification of the amended rules assumes significance in view of the ban the court had imposed on the registration of sale deeds related to apartments and flats without conforming to the provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) - RERA Act, 2016.
In fact, on Wednesday a concern was expressed before the court on behalf of the Associations of Residents as well as Associations of Builders that the delay in finding a solution to the problem is causing serious difficulties as registrations have virtually come to a standstill.
However, the bench said, “Without the legal issue being resolved to permit registrations to take place on an ad-hoc basis would cause serious problems for the buyers for whose benefit the laws in question have been enacted.”
The Court was hearing a PIL filed by a Bhubaneswar-based apartment owner Bimalendu Pradhan challenging the validity of the Odisha Apartment Ownership (Amendment) Rules 2021 on the ground that it is contrary to provisions of the RERA Act, 2016. Advocate Mohit Agarwal argued on the petitioner’s behalf.