O Saturday, the Lanco Hills Technology Park Pvt Ltd was instructed by state consumer disputes redressal commission to reimbursed the amount of Rs one crore within four weeks which it had collected from an NRI customer with 11% interest per annum.
The order was given by the bench, comprising R Lakshminarasimha Rao, T Ashok Kumar and S Bhujanga Rao, after hearing an appeal of NRI Tumu Kiran Praveen Chowdary, a resident of Atlanta city in the USA, who complaint against Lanco Hills to the state commission for its failure to deliver the promised flat on the 14th floor at the Lanco Hills project in Hyderabad .
Despite the fact that Praveen paid an amount of Rs.1.05 crore for the flat, he put a ceiling on his claim to Rs 99.99 lakh perceptibly to have it heard at the state commission whose purview is limited to claims worth Rs one crore and below. Consequently, he was given out only the amount he hunted and not the amount he paid to Lanco Hills. The amount of Rs one crore awarded by the commission includes the money paid by Praveen and his banker, Indian Bank. Both of them have to portion out in accordance with their respective contributions for the loan.
Praveen booked a flat on the 14th floor of the project for Rs 1.05 crore in November 2007. Lanco collected total amount both from the customer and his banker, it failed to construct and hand over the flat to him. According to the judgment written by T Ashok Kumar member of the commission.
When the customer take exception to the same in consumer commission , Lanco Hills bring to a standstill saying that such disputes should be resolved through arbitration proceedings . The objection raised by Lanco Hills was rejected by the commission saying, that the customer is free to either adopt the arbitration route or the consumer court route. Lanco Hills also mention the clause of the unanticipated circumstances like disputes over land for its failure to deliver the promised flat.
The bench said,the company has no right to cite legal disputes as reason for its failures. “As per the agreement, the flat was to be delivered to customer by October 31, 2010 and that did not happen. It’s only after making it doubly sure about the title of the land etc, the builder has to enter into agreement with the customers.