Forum rejects complaints against four in re-development case

The Thane District Consumer Redressal Forum has rejected a bunch of complaints against four persons including a developer and a senior Congressman in connection with a dispute involving re-development of a property here, noting that the matter was embroiled in legal complications and there were no proper documents to support the case.
Forum President Umesh Jhavalikar and member N D Kadam in their order issued last week observed that the agreement for flats produced by the complainants "purported" to have been entered between them and the developer did not have signatures of both the parties and they have not been registered also.

Even the copies of the agreement obtained from the Thane Municipal Corporation were not certified, the order said.
Also, as the entire issue has a lot of legal complications, it does not come under the purview of the Forum and hence needs to be rejected, it said.
The complainants informed the Forum that they were tenants in the building (Kanade House) owned by the respondents.
The building was to be pulled down and re-developed for which they had entered into an agreement with the developer way back in December 1994. A sum of Rs 30,000 was taken from each of the tenants, but they alleged that they were not given tenements in the re-developed building.

The developer, Dinesh T Pachkude, in his submission told the Forum that as the complainants were tenants of the owners of the property -- Vijay P Kanade, Subash P Kanade (senior Congress Leader) and Darshan R Kanade -- they cannot be said to be his consumer, hence the complaint against him does not survive.
He also pointed out that he had entered into an agreement with the owners in 2004 for the re-development of the property and hence the old agreement purported to have been entered between him and the complainants does not survive.
He also pointed out to the Forum that after the agreement with the property owners he had sent out a fresh proposal to the complainants which they had ignored, and hence there was no agreement as such between him and the complainants.