Real estate major DLF was today allowed to deposit Rs 100 crore towards Rs 630 crore fine slapped on it by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for allegedly resorting to unfair business practices.
A bench headed by Justice A R Dave allowed the request after DLF’s counsel said, “we will deposit Rs 100 crore more today with the Registry”.
Earlier, the company had deposited Rs 50 crore as per the August 27 order within three weeks. The court had said the Registry will be at liberty to invest it in any of the nationalised banks.
DLF has also moved the apex court last week expressing difficulty in meeting the November 26 deadline to deposit Rs 630 crore as a pre-condition to entertain its appeal.
It had sought six months’ time to comply with the direction. But the bench asked it to deposit Rs 50 crore within three weeks and the rest Rs 580 crore in the next three months, that is before November 27.
The DLF’s application will come for hearing tomorrow.
The real estate company has sought more time for depositing rest of the amount claiming that it was in serious financial difficulty, which was aggravated by SEBI’s decision to ban the company and six of its senior officials from accessing the capital markets for three years for an alleged non-disclosure in the 2007 IPO filing.
DLF has offered to pledge land in lieu of the outstanding amount and said its land would remain pledged till it deposited the money in the apex court’s registry.
This decision should put the developers and builders on notice that they cannot play around with consumers. Though Consumer Forums are created to protect consumer they have utterly failed to protect the consumers. In a recent judgment the AP High Court has come to the rescue of builder when it tried to enforce its order, instead directing the petitioner-builders to approach National Commission for stay. In fact, proper course is only to approach the National Commission against the order of a State Commission.