The Allahabad High Court - A single member of RERA can also adjudicate the complaints of home buyer.

 The Allahabad High Court  in the Matter of M/S K.D.P. Build Well Pvt Ltd vs State Of U.P. And 4 Others WRIT - C No. - 2248 of 2020 Decided on 4 February, 2020 has held that a single member of RERA can also adjudicate the complaints of home buyer.

It was pleaded that one member of RERA has passed the order in violation of the provisions of the Act of 2016. Section 21 provides for formation of Authority consist of Chairperson along with two whole time Members. The impugned order is by one Member alone going against the mandate of Section 21 of the Act of 2016.

The Court refused to accept the submission of Petitioner Counsel that the Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken a different view. Further the court observed that the Petitioner did not raised any objection before the single Member about his competence to adjudicate the complaint. In absence of objection, the Authority proceeded with the matter. If the objection would have been taken and was sustainable, the complaint could have been decided by the Authority consisting of three Members. The petitioner has challenged the order in reference to the composition only when he lost in the complaint

Referring to Section 21, 29 and 30 of the Act observed that it is not necessary that the adjudication of the complaint has to be made by the composition of Authority, as given under Section 21 of the Act of 2016 though as per Section 29 also, it should be by two Members in absence of the Chairperson. Further Section 30 protects proceedings from invalidation due to any vacancy. 

it was held that 

"We are further not inclined to interfere in the impugned orders on the ground taken by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the order passed by a single member is without jurisdiction as contemplated under Section 21 of the Act and has not been passed in accordance with the provisions of Section 21 of the Act. The arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioner appears us to be misconceived. The proposition of Section 21 is not that the complaint could not be decided by a single member of the Authority, whereas it could be decided by a single member or by two members, whichever is better in the interest of justice as per availability of the members and we further observed that Section 81 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 provides "delegation", which says that "The Authority may, by general or special order in writing, delegate to any member, officer of the Authority or any other person subject to such conditions, if any, as may be specified in the order, such of its powers and functions under this Act ( except the power to make regulations under section 85), as it may deem necessary" and having regard to the provision of Section 81 of the Real Estate ( Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the authority vide their 5th meeting dated 5.12.2018 as per Agenda 1 delegated the power to a single member to decide the cases in both the Benches sitting at Lucknow and Gautam Budh Nagar, the delegation of power of the 5th meeting dated 5.12.2018 of U.P. Real Estate Regulatory Authority is quoted as under:"

There is no provision in the RERA Act which envisaged either the Authority or the Appellate Tribunal to function with a single member

 The Punjab & Haryana High Court vide its order Janta Land Promoters Pvt. Ltd vs Union Of India And Others CWP No. 8548 of 2020, dated 16.10.2020, ruled that there was no provision in the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, (“RERA Act”) which envisaged either the Authority or the Appellate Tribunal to function with a single member while exercising quasi-judicial or adjudicatory functions.

The key points of this judgement are as follows:  

•  The High Court ruled that the adjudicatory power of the Authority could not be transferred to a single member without express provision in the RERA Act.

• While interpreting the provisions provided under Section 21 of the RERA Act, the court held that it is clear that the Authority is a multi member body and that it cannot be considered to be an Authority if it is not comprised of its Chairperson and at least two whole time members. This has to be read along with Section 29 of the RERA Act which deals with the meetings of the Authority.

• Similarly referring to Section 43 of the RERA Act, the Court declared that an Appellate Tribunal was required to have at least two members, out of which, one was to be a judicial and other a technical or administrative member.

•  The court went to hold that any order passed by such Single Member Bench of the Appellate Tribunal would be null and void in law.