The Congress, CPI (M), AIADMK and the Samajwadi Party have filed dissent notes to the report of the Rajya Sabha select committee on the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, which was tabled in the Upper House on Thursday.

The Congress wants every company or association, which seeks to register any project, to first register in the office of the Real Estate Authority. The party has sought an amendment to clause 3 of the Bill. It also wanted the definition of allottee to be improved. The Congress said the provision to exclude land below 500 square metres from the purview of the Bill will result in exclusion of the bulk of urban middle and lower class buyers from the protection of the Bill.

The party has demanded that there should be no minimum size for the plot or a minimum number of apartments in a project. It also argued that the original requirement of ‘retaining 70 per cent of the payments made by the home buyers should be kept in a separate account and used for the purpose of construction’ should be continued. On clause 11, dealing with the duties of promoters, the Congress wanted to add a section called ‘anti-discrimination’ clause. The party said a promoter shall not discriminate on the basis of age, caste, creed, ethnicity, food preferences, language, marital status, religion or sexual orientation of the potential allottee.

CPI (M) member Ritabrata Banerjee demanded provisions to protect the rights of poor and marginalised people who often fall prey to real estate giants.

Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal asked the Centre to withdraw the Bill. He said in his dissent note that the Centre cannot enact a law on a State subject.

AIADMK MP Rabi Bernard has also opposed the Bill citing the same reason as the Samajwadi Party.

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Published on July 30, 2015