MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the state government to order all municipal corporations, municipal councils and other planning authorities across the state to link their respective websites with the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA) portal within three months, to enable home buyers to verify the authenticity of certificates submitted in real estate registrations.
The court also directed all civic bodies and special planning authorities to upload commencement certificates and occupancy certificates on their respective websites within 48 hours of their issuance, till the building plan management system is integrated with the MahaRERA portal.
Taking note of the fact that forged commencement certificates had been submitted by some unscrupulous builders while registering their projects with the real estate authority, the division bench of chief justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and justice Amit Borkar directed MahaRERA to verify the authenticity of all commencement certificates submitted by promoters during project registration from June 2023.
The court issued the order on a public interest litigation filed by architect Sandeep Patil, raising concern about use of forged documents by some unscrupulous builders to register their illegal building projects with MahaRERA.
He had cited an example of a local builder, M/s Sai Builders and Developers, which had submitted allegedly fabricated commencement certificate to register his building construction project within the limits of Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation, with MahaRERA.
He had also submitted a list of 64 other such construction projects in KDMC limits in which builders had used forged or fabricated documents to portray that the projects were legal. Taking note of the illegalities, the MahaRERA has initiated the process for cancelling registration of the 65 construction projects.
Acting on the PIL, the bench also directed the KDMC to demolish the 4,570 illegal structures identified by it, stating that the demolition work would start after the model code for assembly elections is lifted.
The corporation had earlier informed the court that it had already razed four multi-storied buildings and 1,687 other new and existing illegal structures. It said it had collected taxes from 28,847 buildings with a caveat that the tax was collected without any prejudice to any actions taken against any illegal constructions.
According to a survey conducted by revenue authorities between January 30 and March 19, 7,793 residential structures and 449 commercial structures were identified as illegal in Kalyan taluka.
