Writ challenges West Bengal building rules at apex court

KOLKATA: The Supreme Court on Monday admitted a writ petition challenging the constitutional validity of the West Bengal Housing Industry Regulation Act, 2017 (WBHIRA), that was enacted after the Centre introduced the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (Rera). The state government has been given a fortnight to respond.
Bengal is the only state in the country that has not accepted Rera, which came into effect on May 1, 2017, a year after it was passed.The state law in Maharashtra was earlier repealed despite a presidential assent and Kerala did not implement its own act.
The petitioner, Forum for People’s Collective Efforts (FPCE), has been arguing the case at various levels, including with central and state authorities, demanding WBHIRA be repealed. The housing and urban affairs secretary had written to the chief secretary requesting for repeal of the state act and implementation of Rera, but there has been no response from the state government.
In the petition filed at Supreme Court, FPCE has argued that since a Central legislation was already there on the subject covered by WBHIRA, the Constitution required the state act to give way to the Central legislation. Only the Central statute should prevail,” the counsel for FPCE argued.
“A bare look at the provisions of Rera passed in Parliament show that it is a complete and exhaustive code and, therefore, there is no scope for any state legislation to be enacted in the area other than Article 245(2) of the Constitution,” said FPCE president Abhay Upadhyay, adding there was a conflict between Rera and WBHIRA.
The petitioner’s counsel has further pointed to the need to get the President’s assent under Article 254(2) of the Constitution when a state makes a legislation in spite of an already-existing central law on the subject. Real estate developers and realty agents in Bengal said they had no option but to register under WBHIRA to stay in business. Till date, 367 projects in the state have been registered under WBHIRA, including 111 projects in Kolkata.
Calls to the state housing secretary went unanswered.