The Supreme Court has set aside an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) and held that homebuyers who had elected to pursue a possession-delay grievance before the Real Estate Regulatory Authority could not, after withdrawing that complaint while reserving liberty to refile before the same Authority, instead approach the consumer forum on the identical cause of action.
The complainants had initially filed a complaint under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 against the promoter, M/s Kabra and Associates, alleging delay in handing over possession. They later withdrew that RERA complaint, reserving liberty to file a fresh complaint before the RERA Authority, but subsequently chose instead to pursue compensation for the same delay before the NCDRC, which had ruled in their favour. The promoter appealed to the Supreme Court.
Applying the doctrine of election of remedies, the Court held that where two concurrent remedies are available to an aggrieved party for the same grievance, and the party elects one of them, that election operates to bar the party from subsequently pursuing the other remedy on the same cause of action. Because the complainants had already elected the RERA route, and the terms on which they had withdrawn their RERA complaint committed them to returning to the RERA Authority rather than to a different forum, the Court held they could not then retract from that course and pursue the Consumer Protection Act remedy instead. The NCDRC's order in the complainants' favour was accordingly set aside.
Different case summaries vary slightly in how they describe the precise procedural history of the earlier NCDRC order being appealed. Readers relying on this development for a live matter should obtain and read the Supreme Court's full judgment rather than relying on a secondary report for the exact dates and procedural sequence.