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Upendra Choudhury v. Bulandshahar Development Authority & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2021 INSC 77Decided 11 Feb 2021
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 150 of 2021
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

A single home-buyer in a real-estate project called "Sushant Megapolis" filed a writ petition directly before the Supreme Court under Article 32, seeking cancellation of agreements with the developers, refund of money paid by buyers, appointment of a court-monitored committee headed by a retired judge, a forensic audit, and a CBI investigation into alleged fraud by the developers and authority officials. He argued the petition should be tagged with a similar pending matter concerning the same developer's Lucknow project.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court declined to entertain the petition, relying on its own recent three-judge bench ruling in Shelly Lal v. Union of India, which had held that Article 32 is not the right forum for supervising completion of a stalled construction project: that would draw the Court into day-to-day project management, financing and execution, which is beyond judicial review's proper role. The Court noted that specific statutory remedies already exist for home-buyers: the Consumer Protection Act, the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA), and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, each with their own fora and representative-complaint mechanisms. It also noted the petitioner was a single buyer purporting to seek relief as if representing an entire class, with no basis to assume all buyers wanted the same remedy (cancellation/refund versus completion of construction). Criminal investigation requests, the Court held, must go through the ordinary Code of Criminal Procedure framework rather than directly to the Supreme Court. The petition was accordingly dismissed, while clarifying the petitioner remains free to pursue the statutory remedies available to him.

Lesson Learnt

Aggrieved home-buyers in stalled real estate projects should approach the specialized fora created by RERA, Consumer Protection law, or the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code rather than the Supreme Court directly under Article 32, which is reserved for cases genuinely requiring constitutional intervention, not judicial supervision of ordinary commercial projects.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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