Skip to main content

Supreme Court orders builder to repay Rs 33 crore maintenance fees

Dealing a blow to builders who don't deliver on promises, the Supreme Court has asked a developer in Gurgaon to refund residents Rs 33.38 crore — 70% of the maintenance fees it had collected since 2002 - for failing to provide the amenities it had committed to at the time of purchase.

A bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Adarsh Kumar Goel on Friday upheld a March 19 ruling of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) directing the developers of Ambience Lagoon Apartments to refund 70% of the total maintenance money collected over 11 years to 345 flat owners for failing to offer services commensurate with the maintenance charged.

There are 15 blocks in Ambience Lagoon Apartments, located behind Ambience Mall on NH8. At the time of allotment of flats, the buyers were promised one lift for every 10 flats. But in most blocks, only two lifts were provided instead of the four promised.

In November 2004, 66 residents of Ambience Lagoon moved court against Raj Singh Gehlot and his company, Ambience Pvt Ltd, for poor maintenance of lifts. The case dragged on, and finally, on March 19 this year, the NCDRC passed its judgment.

But the company moved the Supreme Court where it was represented by top-flight lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The residents were represented by Kamini Jaiswal.

Depending on the size of the flat, each resident will now get back anything between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 15 lakh.

Article referred: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/No-retrospective-effect-of-new-capital-gains-tax-rules/articleshow/41565536.cms

Comments

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...