Builder cited a death in the family. He had no certificate. The appeal is dead, and the sale order stands.
A Pune promoter who tried to reopen a homebuyer recovery case nearly two years late — and explained the gap with a grandmother’s death, illness, oversight and a claim of no knowledge — has failed before the Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal.
The Tribunal, on 29 September 2026, refused to condone a delay of 674 days. With that, the appeal of M/s P.R. Builders & Developers against a non-compliance order does not survive. A stay plea and a plea to produce documents fall with it. The amount the promoter deposited to file the appeal is to be released to the allottee.
The attached property is not being ordered to auction by this judgment. That step had already been taken. The Tehsildar, Mulshi, attached property on 29 September 2025. An order for sale of the attached property was passed on 1 April 2026. The appeal came only after that. What the promoter has lost is the chance to use this appeal to stall that sale.
How it began
The allottee is Atul Dilip Bhagwat of Chinchwad. The promoter’s appeal was filed through Sachin Prakash Dhavle, described as an authorised partner of P.R. Builders & Developers, Akurdi.
Bhagwat’s complaint, CC005000000054043, was filed on 3 March 2020. MahaRERA passed an order on 4 December 2023. The Tribunal records that the promoter, though served in those proceedings, remained absent, and the matter went ex parte.
When that order was not complied with, the Adjudicating Officer passed a non-compliance order on 8 April 2024. A recovery warrant followed. The Collector of Pune and the Tehsildar, Mulshi, came on record because execution had moved to the revenue machinery. MahaRERA itself was later deleted as a party.
From the allottee’s side, the sequence after that order is what made the appeal look tactical: attachment in September 2025, a sale order on 1 April 2026, and the appeal on or about 10–14 April 2026.
The excuses
The promoter asked the Tribunal to condone 674 days beyond the limitation period for challenging the 8 April 2024 order.
The reasons, as recorded, were these.
Summons and notices in the complaint were not received. There was illness, and the death of the applicant’s grandmother. The applicant was not in a stable state of mind. There was oversight, so the advocate was not instructed in time. One of the main partners was out of station. And, from 2020 until 1 April 2026, the promoter said it had no knowledge of the impugned order.
Advocate Raheel Malik appeared for the promoter. The prayer was that the delay be condoned in the interest of justice.
What was missing
The allottee, through Advocate Nilesh Borate, called the application false, vague and an afterthought, filed only to defeat recovery that had already reached an advanced stage.
The Tribunal agreed that the explanation was not enough, for a reason that is now the sharpest line in the order: none of it was proved.
No death certificate. No medical certificate. No hospital record. No travel documents. The claim of illness and death, the Tribunal noted, was not substantiated by any document on record.
The “no knowledge till 1 April 2026” plea was treated as a bald assertion. The promoter is a partnership firm in the real estate business, not an ordinary litigant who can plead ignorance of a case in which it had already been proceeded against ex parte. A commercial party, the Tribunal said, is expected to be vigilant about its rights.
The timing did the rest. The appeal was filed only after the non-compliance order, the attachment, and the order for sale. The Tribunal read that as dilatory conduct, and as an attempt to obstruct the sale of the attached property.
How the Tribunal answered the law
The bench — Chairperson S.S. Shinde and Member (Administrative) Shrikant M. Deshpande, with the order written by the Member (A) — did not treat condonation as a favour.
It relied on the Supreme Court in Anshul Aggarwal: a party who claims illness must back it with documents, and special, shorter limitation in consumer-type disputes is defeated if highly belated challenges are entertained.
It relied on State of Madhya Pradesh v. Ramkumar Choudhary and Pathapati Subba Reddy: “sufficient cause” means an adequate reason that actually prevented the party from coming in time. Negligence, inaction or want of bona fides is not cured by a liberal approach. Limitation can be harsh. It is still applied when the statute prescribes it. Merits of the main case are not a reason to condone delay.
A Madras High Court ruling, S.R. Vediappan, was used for the same point: filing in time is the rule, condonation is the exception, and flimsy or casual reasons cannot be used to wipe out a huge delay.
The Tribunal’s own line was blunt. Each day of delay has to be explained. Here, the promoter had not explained what stopped the appeal within the statutory period, or even within a reasonable time after it. The conduct — absence before the Authority, absence in the non-compliance proceedings, and an appeal only after the sale order — was treated as non-seriousness and mala fide delay, not as a reasonable explanation.
Condoning the delay at this stage, it said, would undo the allottee’s pursuit of the December 2023 order and send the allottee from pillar to post to enforce rights that are already at the stage of implementation.
What the order actually does
The operative directions are short.
The delay application, Misc. Application No. 693 of 2026, is rejected.
Appeal No. AT05/00605 of 2026 does not survive and stands disposed of.
The stay application (No. 694 of 2026) and the application for production of documents (No. 1298 of 2026) are disposed of as nothing remains.
Misc. Application No. 874 of 2026, filed by the allottee for withdrawal of the pre-deposit, is allowed. The Registry is directed to release to respondent No. 4 the amount the promoter deposited under the proviso to Section 43(5) of the RERA Act.
Parties bear their own costs. A copy goes to the Authority and the parties under Section 44(4).
On the deposit, the Tribunal followed the Supreme Court in Newtech Promoters. The pre-deposit is mandatory so that money already computed for the allottee is secured if a promoter appeals. Once the appeal fails, that money — which the Tribunal said belongs to the allottee — is to be released, so the allottee is not left chasing it again.
Both sides, as they stand
For the allottee, this is the end of an appeal that arrived after attachment and a sale order, backed by reasons the Tribunal found unproved. The December 2023 order, the April 2024 non-compliance order, the warrant, the attachment and the April 2026 sale order are no longer under challenge in this appeal. The pre-deposit is to come to him.
For the promoter, the case on delay was that notices were not received, a death and illness in the family unsettled the applicant, a partner was away, and the order itself was unknown until the sale stage. The Tribunal did not accept that any of this was sufficient cause, largely because no paper was produced to prove it, and because a builder who had already been proceeded against ex parte could not rest on oversight.
The order does not decide, afresh, what the original complaint was worth. It decides that a 674-day late appeal, explained this way, cannot be used to reopen it.
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