Home Buyers Heave A Sigh of Relief as Delhi High Court Restrain Coercive Action On EMIs
(Judicial Quest News Network)
The Delhi High Court has restrained banks and housing finance companies from taking any coercive action to recover EMIs from home buyers over incomplete projects on a plea by an aggrieved homebuyer who has booked two flats in the group housing project of Shubhkamana Buildtech Private Limited at NOIDA.
In the recent times, Courts in India have taken strict stance against the Real Estate Sector as a large number of renowned Builders have, after taking funds from the Banking and Finance Sectors, failed to provide timely possession of flats to homebuyers. In fact, many builders are also facing insolvency proceedings.
The matter along with batch of several other petitions filed by the homebuyers under the subvention scheme, was listed before the Hon’ble Single Judge of the Delhi High Court on 25.05.2022 and the Hon’ble Delhi High Court vide the Order dated 25.05.2022 expressed its prima facie view in favour of the Petitioners i.e., the aggrieved homebuyers and extended the interim stay order dated 31.01.2022 passed by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court in batch of several petitions filed by the homebuyers.
The Hon’ble Delhi High Court vide the Order dated 25.05.2022 continued the operation of the interim order dated 31.01.2022 and provided the following reliefs to the homebuyers:
- Restrained the Banks from taking any coercive actions against the Homebuyers/Petitioners;
- Banks/ NBFCs/ other Financial Institutions are directed to provide information qua the Petitioner’s CIBIL score to TransUnion CIBIL Limited in terms of the order passed so that the CIBIL scores of the Homebuyer is suitably amended in order to ensure that the Homebuyer is not financially prejudiced.
The matter was heard by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjeev Narula – Delhi High Court and all the batch of subvention matters are now listed for hearing before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court on 11.07.2022. The Petitioner/Homebuyer in the matter is represented by the Advocates- Mr. Abhinay Sharma, Mr. Utsav Trivedi, Ms. Shivani Bhushan, Mr. Himanshu Sachdeva, Ms. Manini Roy, Ms. Unnati Vijay and Mr. Pooran Chand Roy.
The balance of convenience in this interim stage lies in favour of the beleaguered homebuyer, keeping in view that they are being penalised despite not being at fault.
The court also observed that grave and irreparable loss will be caused to the petitioners if they are not granted interim protection.
It is brought into the court’s notice that the homebuyers were now being asked to pay EMIs despite the fact that none of the projects was complete or the builders had gone into insolvency while the homebuyer were still waiting for the possession of their dream house.
It is the normal practice of the Banks and financial institutions to disburse loans to the builders at one go without verifying the actual status of the projects.
This led to a situation where the banks and financial institutions were demanding payment of EMIs from the homebuyers despite the fact that the builders had undertaken to discharge this liability till possession.
