FOUR MONTHS FOR WHOM?

There is a strong case for what MahaRERA has done. When a disruption is external, common to every project and beyond the control of any individual promoter, adjudicating it project by project would consume years of the Authority's time and produce broadly the same answer in almost every file. A blanket order avoids that waste. It is administratively sound and it follows a direction from the Union Ministry. On its own terms, it is defensible. But the terms on which an order is defensible are not the only terms that matter, and this newspaper's readers sit on the side of the order that has no voice in it. Consider what the extension does not distinguish between. A promoter genuinely halted by the unavailability of imported material receives four months. A promoter who was eighteen months behind schedule in 2024 for reasons entirely of his own making — undercapitalisation, diversion of funds, disputes with contractors — receives the same four months, provided only that his completion date happens to fall on the right side of 28 February 2026. The order does not ask why any particular project is late. It cannot ask, because asking is precisely what a blanket order is designed to avoid. That is the price of efficiency, and it is paid entirely by allottees. They were not heard. They cannot apply for exclusion of their project. There is no mechanism by which a buyer in a project delayed for demonstrably unrelated reasons can say: this disruption is not my promoter's excuse. We would make one observation of law, and we make it carefully. The completion date recorded with the Authority under Section 4 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 and the possession date agreed between a promoter and an allottee in a registered agreement for sale under Section 13 are different obligations arising from different instruments. Section 18 of the Act attaches consequences to a failure to give possession in accordance with the terms of the agreement for sale. Whether, and to what extent, a regulatory extension of the registration timeline affects an accrued or accruing contractual claim is a question that will be decided by the Authority and the appellate forums on the facts of individual complaints. It is not settled by the extension order, and this newspaper does not assert that it is. What we do assert is that buyers should not be told, at a builder's site office, that the order has extinguished their agreement. That is not a proposition any order has established. There is a second concern, and it is about repetition. Blanket extensions were granted for the pandemic. They have now been granted for a foreign conflict. Each was justified on its own facts. But a regulator that resets timelines every few years by general order begins, over time, to communicate something it did not intend: that the completion date on the portal is provisional, and that the deadline is a matter of negotiation between the industry and the state rather than a commitment to the buyer. Once that impression sets, restoring the credibility of the recorded date is very hard. The remedy is not to withhold relief where relief is genuinely due. It is to be visibly rigorous about everything else. If the Authority's timelines are to move by general order, then its enforcement of what remains — quality of disclosure, escrow discipline, the bar on possession without an occupancy certificate, recovery of ordered amounts — must be seen to tighten in exact proportion. Relief and rigour have to move together, or the order becomes a one-way ratchet. Four months is not a long time in construction. It is a long time in a rented flat, paid for out of the same income that services the home loan on a flat that does not yet exist. That household did not cause the conflict in West Asia either.

सरसकट मुदतवाढ प्रशासकीयदृष्ट्या सोयीची असली, तरी तिचा भार ज्यांना बोलण्याची संधीच नाही त्यांच्यावर पडतो बाह्य कारणाने आलेला अडथळा प्रत्येक प्रकल्पासाठी सारखाच असेल, तर प्रत्येक प्रकरण स्वतंत्रपणे तपासण्यात प्राधिकरणाची वर्षे खर्ची पडतील. त्या अर्थाने सरसकट आदेश समर्थनीय आहे. पण समर्थनीय असणे आणि न्याय्य असणे या दोन वेगळ्या गोष्टी आहेत. हा आदेश एक फरक करत नाही — पुरवठा साखळीमुळे खरोखर अडलेला विकासक आणि स्वतःच्या चुकांमुळे आधीच अठरा महिने मागे असलेला विकासक, दोघांनाही सारखीच चार महिन्यांची सवलत मिळते. आदेश 'प्रकल्प का रखडला' हा प्रश्न विचारत नाही; कारण तो प्रश्न टाळणे हाच सरसकट आदेशाचा हेतू असतो. याची किंमत पूर्णपणे ग्राहक मोजतो. त्याचे म्हणणे ऐकले गेले नाही, आणि आपला प्रकल्प या सवलतीतून वगळावा अशी मागणी करण्याची कोणतीही यंत्रणा त्याच्याकडे नाही. एक कायदेशीर नोंद सावधपणे करावी लागेल. महारेराकडे नोंदवलेली पूर्णत्वाची तारीख आणि नोंदणीकृत विक्री करारातील ताबा देण्याची तारीख या दोन वेगळ्या दस्तऐवजांतील वेगळ्या जबाबदाऱ्या आहेत. नियामक मुदतवाढीचा करारातील दाव्यावर नेमका काय परिणाम होतो, हे वैयक्तिक तक्रारींच्या तथ्यांवर प्राधिकरण व अपील मंचच ठरवतील. तो प्रश्न या आदेशाने निकाली निघालेला नाही. दुसरी चिंता पुनरावृत्तीची आहे. साथीच्या काळात सरसकट मुदतवाढ, आता परदेशातील संघर्षामुळे सरसकट मुदतवाढ. प्रत्येक वेळी स्वतंत्र समर्थन असले, तरी संदेश एकच जातो — पोर्टलवरील तारीख तात्पुरती आहे. एकदा हा समज रुजला की नोंदवलेल्या तारखेची विश्वासार्हता परत मिळवणे अवघड होते. उपाय सवलत नाकारणे हा नाही. उपाय हा आहे की उर्वरित बाबींमध्ये — प्रकटीकरण, एस्क्रो शिस्त, ओसीशिवाय ताबा न देणे, आदेशित रकमांची वसुली — अंमलबजावणी तेवढ्याच प्रमाणात कडक दिसली पाहिजे. सवलत आणि कठोरता एकत्रच चालली पाहिजेत. बांधकामात चार महिने फार नाहीत. भाड्याच्या घरात राहून, न बांधलेल्या घराचे गृहकर्ज फेडणाऱ्या कुटुंबासाठी मात्र ते खूप मोठे असतात.