After the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the insolvency proceedings against Jaypee Infratech, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan offered a fresh ray of hope to the 32,000 flat buyers in Jaypee Infratech’s township project ‘Wish Town’ in Noida.
The project has been running far behind the schedule, and the homebuyers got rude shock when the National Company law Tribunal (NClT), Allahabad Bench, started insolvency proceedings against Jaypee Infratech.
Stating that his Ministry is flooded with complaints from aggrieved homebuyers, Paswan said he has set up an in-house panel to look into the matter.
“The panel to be headed by the Consumer Affairs Secretary will study and submit a status report within three days. We will see if there is any jurisdiction… We want to protect the interest of homebuyers,” Paswan told reporters.
Homebuyers have filed 400 complaints against the company through the National Consumer Helpline of the Ministry.
These complaints have been forwarded to concerned departments/ Ministries for redressal, he said. Around 141 homebuyers have filed cases against the real estate firm in consumer courts. IDBI Bank too has filed an insolvency petition before the National Company law Tribunal, which the Supreme Court stayed recently, he added.
Currently, there are 60 National Consumer Helpline centres (NCHs) in the country.
Paswan said six regional consumer helpline centres will be operational from October 10 this year. Each region would have ten helpline centres.
The State-operated consumer helpline centres are about 24, which are being updated with new software and integrated with the national centres, he added.
On Monday, the apex court stayed the NClT order of August 9, 2017 by which the flat buyers were prohibited from filing any suit against JIl until completion of proceedings before it. The homebuyers were aggrieved by this order as in the proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016, the interest of secured creditors (eg, the banks which loaned money to JIl) will have preference over the interest of unsecured creditors (comprising of flat buyers).