Warn prospective buyers of litigation risk, NGT tells Bandra realtor

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Resilience Realty Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Rustomjee Realty, to inform prospective buyers of flats at Rustomjee Oriana project at Kala Nagar in Bandra, that the matter is pending before the tribunal and would be subject to the final outcome of the litigation.

The order was passed by the Pune bench of the NGT comprising justice VR Kingaonkar and Dr Ajay Deshpande, an expert, while hearing a petition filed by resident Anil V Tharthare. They observed: "In the meanwhile, if any third party right or assignment is created hereafter by respondent no 6, then third party be informed that such assignment is subject to the outcome of pendency of the present litigation."

This means that persons buying flats in the said project, upon notice, would be doing so at their own risk and their rights would be subject to the outcome of the proceedings before the tribunal.

Tharthare had approached the NGT challenging the Environment Clearance granted to the project by the authorities concerned.

Aditya Prartap, advocate for Tharthare, argued that among other violations, there were major violations of the development control regulations, 1991.

Senior Counsel Gaurav Joshi representing the developer, raised objection regarding the maintainability of the petition and also questioned the locus standi of Tharthare.

The judges, however, refused to go into the merits of the matter and asked the developer to inform prospective buyers before transferring or creating any third party rights with respect to the flats.

"At this juncture, we do not wish to make any comment on the merits of the matter, in as much as the issues are yet to be thrashed out," observed the bench.