BENGALURU: Land cheating cases are not new in a city like Bengaluru. While most of the times there are reports of builders’ being declared the accused, the landowners stay out of the picture. According to a recent order by the Karnataka Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), to bring transparency in the real estate sector, landowners, who get a share of total revenue generated from the sale of apartments or a constructed building, fall under the category of ‘promoter’.
The word ‘promoter’ is not properly defined in the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016. While it may be common knowledge what the terms ‘landowner’, ‘builder’, ‘developer’ and ‘promoter’ mean, a clear definition was not mentioned. However, the term was believed to have been brought out because, in Bengaluru, many projects are joint development projects. In some cases, landowners could also be promoters of the projects.
RERA activist Bhagylakshmi Ayyar said the move to include landowners to be held accountable for the ongoing projects may help buyers. “There are cases wherein the landowners and the builder get into an agreement to approach the court and delay the deadline to get a stay order purposefully to continue receiving interest from the investors. This order will now hold both parties responsible for the timely completion of the project,” she said. After the new rules came in, 12-15 projects have been registered so far.
Vishnu Vardhan Reddy, a permanent member of the RERA board, said these kind of cheating cases were quite common and civil courts must take cognisance of these issues. “Many courts are still not aware of these issues. So we discourage them from taking up cases of litigation between landowners and builders where the project is registered under RERA,” he said.
A trend commonly observed was the collusion of farmers and builders, said a senior police officer. “The builders take the land of say 20 farmers. They set the layout and make it attractive for the investors. Once they have invested, the farmers file a petty case against the investors, forcing the work to be stopped and the perpetrators enjoy the money along with the interest,” the official saidAccording to the city’s crime record bureau, there might be a slight decrease in cheating cases. Moreover, while cases have reduced, there is an increase in the number of victims, senior officials said