A Supreme Court bench, comprising justices RF Nariman and SK Kaul, has stayed further proceedings in a defamation suit, filed by a builder in a court in Maharashtra’s Thane district against a home buyer and also sought the builder’s response on the transfer plea of the buyer. The home buyer approached the apex court, seeking transfer of the suit pending in Thane, to an appropriate court in Haryana’s Gurugram and claimed that the builder filed a case against him, as he had lodged complaints for delay in handing over the flat’s possession.
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Vineet Malik, a resident of Gurugram, said in his petition that he had booked the flat in ‘Ekta Parksville’ project of real estate firm Ekta Parksville Homes Pvt Ltd, in November 2011. He alleged that despite taking about 95 per cent of the total consideration of the flat, the builder had extended the date of handing over the flat several times. Malik claimed that due to the delay in handing over the flat, he wrote a number of e-mails and letters to the representatives of the builder but no satisfactory answer was given to him.
He alleged that acting on his complaint, the Maharashtra police started an investigation against the builder. “As a counter blast, respondent no. one (builder) filed a civil suit for defamation and a declaration to the effect that the agreement for sale had been validly terminated, inter alia,” the plea claimed, adding, “This was done in order to threaten the petitioner (Malik) and silence his voice against the illegal actions of respondent no. one (builder)”.
