The Punjab and Haryana High Court on May 03, 2022 in the matter of M/s Experion Developers Private Limited vs. State of Haryana and others observed that obtaining of an occupancy certificate will not render anyone to be outside the purview of the jurisdiction of the State Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

In this matter, M/s Experion Developers Private Limited (“Petitioner”), sought issuance of a writ in the nature of ‘certiorari’ to set aside the proceedings pending before the Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (“Regulatory Authority”) in a complaint case. It further sought issuance of a writ of ‘mandamus/prohibition’ restraining the aforesaid authority from acting in contravention of the provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (“RERA”).

On one hand, Petitioner raised a basic issue that he had received an occupancy certificate in respect of at least that part of the project as respondents would be concerned with, on 02.03.2017, and RERA came into effect (as regards Section 3 thereof) only from 01.05.2017, so the project has to be treated to be a completed project and therefore there was no requirement for even registration of the project by the Petitioner with the RERA authority in terms of Section 3. On the other hand, Counsel for Regulatory Authority submitted that there is an obvious anomaly between Section 3(2)(b) of the Act of 2016 and the Rules of 2017, as Section 3(2)(b) reads to say that it is only after a completion certificate has been obtained by a developer in respect of any particular project, before the said Act came into effect, that it would not be required to get such project registered with the Authority; but with the Petitioner having obtained only an occupancy certificate and not a completion certificate, necessarily it was required to get its project registered and therefore the jurisdiction of the Authority is very much existent qua the project.

The Court observed-

“As regards that factual aspect and specifically with regard to as to whether the petitioner was allowed to complete the project in different phases in terms of the licence granted to it, and therefore whether that occupancy certificate for any particular phase as has been completed (if so), is to be treated to be a completion certificate in terms of Section 2(q) of the Act, is left to the appellate authority under the Act to decide on merits, keeping in view of course the judgement of the Supreme Court in M/s Newtech Promoters and Developers (supra), and any other law laid down on the subject.”

In view of the above, the petition was dismissed.