New Delhi: The government today gave in to the Opposition and referred the bill for regulating real estate to a select committee for scrutiny.
Urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu brought a motion for sending the bill to the committee, to be headed by BJP MP Anil Madhav Dave. The 21-member panel will have to hand in its report at the start of the monsoon session.
The Opposition had demanded examination of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2013, by such a panel, claiming it was "toothless" and lacked safeguards for consumers in an earlier version of the legislation.
The bill was listed for discussion and passage every day over the past week but could not go ahead because of the Opposition’s protests.
The original bill was introduced by the UPA government in the Rajya Sabha in August 2013 and was sent to a parliamentary standing committee. It could not be passed during the UPA’s term. The Modi government inserted a few amendments.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh had said all pro-consumer provisions in the bill had been diluted. "The amendments go against the interests of consumers," Ramesh had said last week when Naidu tried to move the bill. The CPM’s Tapan Sen also claimed substantive differences in the two versions.
Navaneetha Krishnan of the AIADMK had questioned the basis of the proposed law, arguing land was a state subject and Parliament had no powers to legislate on real estate.
Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujral, whose party is a BJP ally, had also demanded scrutiny by a select committee. Naidu had said the revised bill drew on the recommendations of the standing committee and consultations with stakeholders.