GMADA Told To Reassess Purab Premium Completion Certificates: What The NCDRC Order Says GMADA को पूरब प्रीमियम के कम्प्लीशन सर्टिफ़िकेट दोबारा जाँचने का निर्देश: NCDRC का आदेश क्या कहता है GMADA ਨੂੰ ਪੂਰਬ ਪ੍ਰੀਮੀਅਮ ਦੇ ਕੰਪਲੀਸ਼ਨ ਸਰਟੀਫ਼ਿਕੇਟ ਦੁਬਾਰਾ ਜਾਂਚਣ ਦਾ ਹੁਕਮ: NCDRC ਦਾ ਆਦੇਸ਼ ਕੀ ਕਹਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ

Purab Premium Apartments in Sector Eighty Eight is one of the few large housing projects in Mohali where GMADA is both the builder and the body that certifies the building as complete. That double role has kept its owners in litigation for close to a decade. The latest order in the dispute, reported by LiveLaw on the eighteenth of October this year, sends the completion certificates back to GMADA's Chief Administrator. He is to look at the project again and certify only what is actually finished, with a date attached.

What the national consumer forum decided

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, sitting in New Delhi, heard two execution applications filed by the Purab Premium Apartment Allottees Association. According to LiveLaw, the bench reserved its order on the tenth of September and pronounced it on the eighth of October.

The NCDRC held that the two completion certificates GMADA issued in October two thousand and twenty four did not fully comply with its earlier judgment. It directed the Chief Administrator to reconsider all the technical reports and records. He is to reach a definite finding on whether every promised work is complete, in the individual flats as well as in the common areas. If it is, he is to write into the certificate the date on which the last work was completed.

Fresh certificates are due within thirty days of GMADA receiving a certified copy of the order. They are to go to the allottees' association and to the office bearers of the residents' welfare association. GMADA is also to put them on its website.

How the dispute reached this point

The allottees took their case to the NCDRC in two consumer complaints, the first filed in two thousand and sixteen. In its judgment of the fourth of May two thousand and twenty three, as LiveLaw summarises it, the NCDRC found that GMADA had issued allotment letters in June two thousand and sixteen without a valid occupation or completion certificate. It gave GMADA forty five days to obtain one.

The same judgment tied delay compensation to the certificate. Compensation was set as simple interest at six per cent a year on the amount each allottee had paid. It would stop in June two thousand and sixteen if the certificate confirmed completion by then, and would run to a later date if the certificate showed later completion. A clarifying order of the seventh of November two thousand and twenty three applied the same condition to maintenance charges.

GMADA had issued a certificate in July two thousand and eighteen, which the NCDRC rejected in its two thousand and twenty three judgment. In October two thousand and twenty four, GMADA issued two more. One memo covered nineteen towers and the other covered eight. The allottees' association challenged both.

Why the certificates fell short

The association argued that the new certificates repeated the rejected one of two thousand and eighteen, and that they had been signed by the Chief Administrator alone although a notification of two thousand and twenty two calls for a committee. It also said the certificates did not show a valid fire safety certificate or environmental clearances. The association told the bench that parking and fire safety systems were still incomplete, along with some common facilities.

GMADA's case was that the certificates came out of a proper process involving its technical departments. It argued that the earlier notification of two thousand and fourteen applied because completion had taken place in the years after allotment. In its view the newer notification did not reach back in time.

The NCDRC found that the Chief Administrator had not examined the technical reports closely enough when he signed. One certificate was described as issued "administratively purely on the basis of report of Technical Wing", and the other gave no specific completion date. Neither said whether the fire safety certificate and the environmental clearance were in place.

The bench accepted that the Chief Administrator has to rely on reports from his technical officers. It held that he still has to examine them critically and take responsibility for the conclusion. Whether the works are finished, and from when, is a question of fact that needs physical inspection by GMADA's own officers. A forum hearing an execution case is not the place to carry out that inspection in the first instance.

Which rules apply to the new certificate

The order also settles which set of rules governs the fresh certificate. As LiveLaw reports it, if the Chief Administrator certifies completion on a date before the seventh of October two thousand and twenty two, the notification of two thousand and fourteen applies and he alone is the competent authority. For any later date the notification of two thousand and twenty two applies. A committee chaired by him is then the competent authority.

That choice has a practical edge. An earlier completion date ends delay compensation sooner. A later one keeps it running and brings in the committee route. The order leaves the date to be found on the facts after inspection.

Who collects maintenance, and from when

Much of the friction at Purab Premium has been about maintenance charges. GMADA ran the common services at first, and a residents' welfare association later took over. The allottees' association and the welfare association have disagreed over which body collects.

The NCDRC relied on section seventeen A of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act of nineteen ninety five. Under that section, the competent authority is to direct that an association of residents be formed, and responsibility for the "maintenance and upkeep of common areas, infrastructure and common services of the colony shall devolve on the association". The bench read this as limiting GMADA's maintenance role to an initial period, until an association is formed.

According to LiveLaw, the order then sets out who is paid. For the period when GMADA itself did the maintenance, charges are due to GMADA only from the later of two dates, physical possession or the completion date in the fresh certificate. As a general rule, maintenance is due to the welfare association from the latest of the date it actually began maintenance, the date the allottee took physical possession and the certified completion date.

There is one exception. Where the welfare association was already doing the maintenance before the certified date, and owners who have moved in are using those services, the bench left the parties to settle the matter between themselves. It recorded that it expected such owners to pay the welfare association from the date it began maintenance. For flats that are still unallotted, GMADA is to pay maintenance to the welfare association from the date the association took over.

What the order means for owners and buyers in the project

For a family that already owns a flat at Purab Premium, the immediate result is a wait of about a month for fresh certificates, counted from the day GMADA receives the certified copy. The date written in those certificates will then decide how long delay compensation runs and from when maintenance is due to GMADA.

For someone looking at a resale flat in the project, the order is a reminder that the completion status of a GMADA project can still be open years after possession. The certificates, once issued, are to be on GMADA's website, and the papers a seller shows can be checked against them.

The order also says something wider about public developers. GMADA argued that its own departmental process was enough. The NCDRC accepted that the Chief Administrator is the competent authority, yet still required him to verify the work himself and to state when it was finished. An authority that builds homes is held to the same test of a documented completion as any private builder.

What remains open

The full text of the order was not available to us, and this piece relies on the LiveLaw report of the eighteenth of October for its contents. A separate report by Supreme Today on the nineteenth of October gives a similar account. GMADA can take the matter further under the Consumer Protection Act, and nothing in the reports says whether it intends to. The welfare association's dispute with the allottees' association has also been before the Delhi High Court according to a LiveLaw report of February this year. That case is not covered here.

Related reading

- Offer of possession without occupancy and completion certificates: what counts
- When a Mohali builder ignores a consumer forum order: how enforcement works

Sources: The sources we use are listed on our Editorial Sources page.

This piece describes a reported order of the national consumer forum and the published text of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act. Nothing here is legal advice, and any flat or dispute turns on its own papers and facts.