In Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No.10173/2023-SC- Big relief for homebuyer as Apex Court accepts plea seeking deferment of payment of EMIs till possession of allotted unit is delivered
Justices V. Ramasubramanian & Pankaj Mithal [16-05-2023]

Read Order:ROHIT KUMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS 

LE Correspondent

New Delhi, May 18,2023: The Supreme Court has extended the grant of interim relief to a homebuyer who sought the deferment of payment of EMIs till the possession of allotted house is given to him.

“Since the petitioner has had the benefit of interim protection from 25.05.2022 till the date on which the impugned order was passed, the petitioner shall be entitled to the benefit of the same interim protection till the next date of hearing”, the Division Bench of Justice V. Ramasubramanian & Justice Pankaj Mithal held.

In this matter, the Petitioner was being made to make payments for a liability under an understanding that the builder was liable to pay Pre EMIs to the banks till the possession of the allotted houses was handed over to the Petitioner. Once the builder defaulted in making Pre-EMI payments, the Petitioner was being made to make those payments to the bank/NBFC without being granted possession of the property.

The homebuyers approached the Delhi High Court after they realised that the builder was undergoing CIRP proceedings, and a moratorium was put in place.

It was the petitioner’s case before the High Court that a ‘BUILDER-BUYER AGREEMENT’ was entered into with the Builer. The Petitioner entered into ‘TRIPARTITE AGREEMENT’ with the said Builder and PNB Housing Finance Limited which was in the nature of a subvention scheme. 

It was averred that the builder had not delivered the possession of the said units within the stipulated time, and had failed to carry out its liability of paying EMIs. Meanwhile, the Bank had initiated coercive legal action against the Petitioner for the purpose of recovering the said EMIs on the loan facility.

The High Court vide its judgment dated May 25, 2022, restrained the respondents from taking any coercive action against the Petitioners till the next date of hearing and the Banks/ NBFCs/ other Financial Institutions were directed to provide information qua the Petitioner’s CIBIL score to TransUnion CIBIL Limited so that the CIBIL scores of the Petitioner was suitably amended in order to ensure that the Petitioner was not financially prejudiced.

In the year 2023, the homebuyers had also approached the Delhi High Court with a plea directing the respondent banks/financial institutions not to charge the pre-EMIs or full EMIs from the petitioners/alike homebuyers. It was also prayed that the respondent banks/financial institutions be directed not to charge the pre-EMIs/full EMIs till the possession was not delivered by the respondents builder/alike real estate developers to the petitioners with respect to their respective flats.

However, in view of the availability of alternative remedies, the High Court dismissed those petitions on March 14, 2023.

The petitioner approached the Top Court after the bank officials started making repeated calls to the Petitioner for payment of EMI and also started visiting his residence.The petitioner-homebuyer sought deferment of payment of EMIs till the possession of the allotted house was handed over  and the Top Court granted interim relief to him.

“Issue notice, returnable in four weeks”, the Bench asserted while holding that the petitioner shall be entitled to the benefit of the interim protection till the next date of hearing. 

The team representing the petitioner comprised of Mr. Abhinay, AOR, Ms. Sakshi Jain, Mr. P.C. Roy, Mr. L.K. Srivastava and Ms. Parul Khurana.