Delhi HC relief for home buyers of Radius project

Mumbai: The Delhi High Court has directed the Punjab National Bank Housing Finance Ltd (PNBHFL) to stop all recovery action including demand for payment of EMIs as well adverse reporting of credit rating of people who have booked homes in Radius and Deserve Developer’s Chembur project, Anantya.

The court’s interim relief follows a petition from 20 home buyers stating that the finance company has been allegedly harassing home buyers to pay EMIs for loans given to the builder, despite no construction having taken place. Notably, the CBI had arrested Radius Developers promoter Sanjay Chhabria in April 2022, in connection with a cheating case it is probing against DHFL’s Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhwan and Yes Bank’s Rana Kapoor.

In identical orders issued on July 11 naming Radius and Deserve Developers and PNBHFL as respondents, Justice Sanjeev Narula said, “Respondents are restrained from taking any coercive action against the Petitioners till the next date of hearing. The order would bind the assignees of debts from original lenders,” the orders said. “Banks/NBFCs/other Financial Institutions are directed to provide information qua the Petitioners’ CIBIL score to TransUnion CIBIL Ltd in terms of the order passed today, so that the CIBIL scores of the petitioners are suitably amended in order to ensure that they are not financially prejudiced,” the orders said, clarifying that these orders are based on prima facie view recorded in January and will not prejudice any of the parties at the time of final hearing. The case was adjourned for hearing on September 15. The petitioners told the court that the developer had in 2015-16 claimed that flats in the Anantya project would be delivered to them in 2020. Later, the possession date was unilaterally modified to December 2024. PNBHFL had a tie up with the developer and set up an exclusive loan facilitation unit for sanctioning the loans on the project. Home buyers were made to enter into a loan agreement with PNBHFL and a tripartite agreement was signed where the lender agreed to undertake construction-linked payments to the developer. Pointing out that the RBI guidelines clearly require the banks/NBFCs to ensure that the funds are disbursed as each stage of construction is completed, the petition alleged that PNBHFL had disregarded the guidelines.