'Refund parking space charge'

The Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, state consumer watchdog, has ruled that builders must provide parking space without charging additional amount from flat buyers. Kanchan Chaudhari reports.

The state consumer watchdog has ruled that builders must provide parking space without charging additional amount from flat buyers.

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The Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, whose order is legally binding, recently directed a developer to refund the money he had charged for parking spaces and allowed compensation of Rs 10,000 for failing to execute the deed of an apartment in favour of its buyers.

"As per civic rules, builders must provide free parking space to flat buyers," said the bench comprising the commission's president, Justice (Retd) SB Mhase, and members PN Kashalkar and SP Lale.

The builder in this case, S Seetharama Iyer, was not allowed to collect Rs 10,000 as parking charges from flat buyers and was asked to refund the amount.

The developer was also ordered to pay Rs 5,000 to the complainants, Dr Siddhartha Sengupta and Sunita Nair, residents of Ganesh Bhuvan at Powai.

Iyer was given a month to pay the amounts and execute the deed.

Sengupta and Nair had moved the commission through their counsel UB Wavikar in 1999. They said that Iyer had agreed to provide three parking spaces to them, one each for the flats they purchased.

Sengupta told Hindustan Times: "I knew I was not required to pay for the parking space. The builder made my life hell."