RERA registration jurisdiction: part occupancy certificate can remove a project phase from registration and bar Adjudicating Officer complaints.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 treats registration questions as falling within the Real Estate Regulatory Authority's domain, while the Adjudicating Officer's role is confined to compensation claims under the specified violation provisions. A phase that had obtained a part occupancy certificate within the statutory registration window was treated as completed for registration purposes and not as a registrable ongoing project under Section 3. On that basis, a complaint alleging defaults in relation to such a phase could not be entertained by the Adjudicating Officer, and directions on registration-related issues under Sections 3 and 31 were outside that officer's jurisdiction.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the Adjudicating Officer had jurisdiction to entertain the complaint when the subject phase of the project had received a part occupancy certificate within the statutory registration window and therefore did not require registration under Section 3 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016; (ii) Whether the Adjudicating Officer could determine registration-related questions and directions under Section 3 read with Section 31 of the Act, or whether that power lay exclusively with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

Issue (i): Whether the Adjudicating Officer had jurisdiction to entertain the complaint when the subject phase of the project had received a part occupancy certificate within the statutory registration window and therefore did not require registration under Section 3 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016.

Analysis: The statutory scheme distinguishes between ongoing projects that must be registered within the prescribed three-month window and completed projects exempt from registration. The definitions of "building", "real estate project", and "phase of a real estate project" support reading a phase to include a building or part of a building, including defined floors in a multi-storeyed structure. On that construction, a phase that has already received a part occupancy certificate within the registration window is treated as completed for the purpose of registration and does not require registration. The Court also held that the Authority's contemporaneous FAQs supported this interpretation. The earlier maintainability decision in the complainants' own matter and the later writ proceedings concerning the part occupancy certificate reinforced that the same phase did not require registration. A complaint premised on alleged defaults in relation to such an unregistrable phase could not be entertained by the Adjudicating Officer.

Conclusion: The Adjudicating Officer had no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint in respect of the subject phase, as that phase did not require registration under Section 3.

Issue (ii): Whether the Adjudicating Officer could determine registration-related questions and directions under Section 3 read with Section 31 of the Act, or whether that power lay exclusively with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

Analysis: The Act creates a clear bifurcation: the Real Estate Regulatory Authority is entrusted with registration and regulation of projects, while the Adjudicating Officer's role under Section 71 is confined to adjudging compensation for violations under Sections 12, 14, 18 and 19. Registration, exemption from registration, and questions whether a project or phase falls within Section 3 are matters for the Authority, not the Adjudicating Officer. The impugned order was therefore contrary to the statutory scheme and could not validly decide the registration question. The Court held that once the Authority had already taken a view on maintainability in the first complaint, it was not open to the Adjudicating Officer to reach a contrary conclusion on the same registration issue.

Conclusion: The power to decide registration-related issues under Section 3 lay with the Authority, not with the Adjudicating Officer.

Final Conclusion: The impugned order could not stand because it proceeded on an erroneous assumption of jurisdiction and trespassed into the Authority's exclusive domain on registration, while the subject phase was not liable to registration in the first place.

Ratio Decidendi: Under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the Authority alone determines whether a project or phase requires registration, and a phase that has already obtained a part occupancy certificate within the registration window is not a registrable ongoing project for the purpose of complaints before the Adjudicating Officer.

---