Hardeep Singh Puri vs Piyush Goyal? Shots fired over Rera | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Union housing minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said the real estate regulatory law has been enacted especially to deal with the sector and government entities need to resist the temptation to offer solutions that would encourage consumers for ‘forum shopping’ — approaching multiple forums for redressal of grievances.
“Let me put it for the sake of the record that the issues pertaining to the real estate sector have been made the subject of this forum, Rera. Prior to Rera, you had the consumer redressal mechanism… If I were also an affected party, I would have gone for forum shopping. I would go here, there and then to the court. But let us resist the temptation of trying to solve the problem of another forum through a mechanism,” Puri said while addressing the meeting of the CAC.
His remark came weeks after the consumer affairs ministry headed by Piyush Goyal held a meeting with stakeholders to identify problems faced by consumers in the real estate sector even years after Rera came into force.

According to the ministry, while the number of complaints lodged with consumer commissions has reduced after Rera, still 10% of all the complaints with these commissions are related to the real estate sector. The consumer ministry has also set up a panel to suggest the model provisions in builder-buyer agreement for protecting homebuyers’ interest.
Puri said if the consumer forums had been that effective, then there would have been no need for Rera. He also said that there was a need to see that matters related to specific sectors are taken up with the forums created for a particular purpose and that too by an act of Parliament like Rera. He added they have won the legal challenge for Rera. “Let’s not now try to weaken it by saying that other forums can also do. it,” the Union minister said.