Real-estate firm to pay over Rs 5L for unfair trade practice

A consumer forum here has asked a real estate firm to pay over Rs 5 lakh to a senior citizen for "extracting money" from him "under false temptation" of a flat in its upcoming project.
The New Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, presided by C K Chaturvedi, asked TDI Infrastructure Pvt Ltd to pay Rs 5.55 lakh to one Rajinder Prasad Garg, noting the firm had taken money from him for a flat in its proposed project in 2005, but there was no construction activity at the site till date.
"Opposite Party (firm) has till date neither informed the complainant (Garg) nor filed the status report of project in question. OP has only issued demand notice on EDC (external development charges) to save skin when construction of project has not been initiated," the forum said.

The forum said that "it is a clear case of unfair trade practices to extract money from various consumers under false temptation of upcoming project and utilise hard earned money of consumers".
"It also proves the malafide intention of OP how to fool innocent consumer without approval of sanction plan by the competent authority and to collect the money through flashy advertisement," it said.
Holding the firm guilty, the forum directed it to refund Rs 5 lakh to Garg and also awarded compensation of Rs 50,000 for harassment and Rs 5,000 as litigation expenses.

Garg had told the forum that he had booked a flat in the firm's project in Sonepat, Haryana, by depositing Rs 3 lakh in August, 2005 and further paid Rs 2 lakh in August, 2006.

He had alleged that the firm was supposed to give him the possession of flat within 36 months but it failed to deliver that as there was no construction activity at the site till December 2012.
When Garg found out that neither any construction activity at the site had begun nor any satisfactory reply was given to him by the firm officials, he filed a complaint before the forum.