Appellate Tribunal Cannot Decide Complaint on Merits When RERA Dismissed On Maintainability

Judgment dated 21.10.2026 of the High Court of Bombay in Second Appeal No.408 of 2025 of Keyana Estate LLP  Vs.  Ashok D. Karwa and another

The Appeal challenges order dated 19 March 2025 passed by the Maharashtra Real Estate Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai, directing that the Appellate Tribunal would proceed to decide merits of the appeal instead of remanding the proceedings to the Regulatory Authority for adjudication.

In the present case, the MahaRERA did not adjudicate the complaint on merits and proceeded to dismiss the same only on the issue of maintainability. The Appellate Tribunal has disagreed with the decision of the MahaRERA and has held that Complaint filed by allottees is maintainable notwithstanding incorporation of arbitration clause in the agreement. Once the Complaint is held to be maintainable, the Appellate Tribunal ought to have remitted the Complaint to MahaRERA for its decision on merits. It appears that similar course of action has in fact been adopted by the Appellate Tribunal in Smt. Sunita Singh and Anr. V/s. Keyana Estate LLP 1 . However just because the complainants are senior citizen, the Appellate Tribunal has directed that it would decide the merits of the complaint.

In view of the above discussion, the question of law is answered by holding that since MahaRERA dismissed the Complaint on the issue of maintainability, the only course of action open for Appellate Tribunal was to remand the Complaint for adjudication on merits after holding that decision of MahaRERA about maintainability of the Complaint was erroneous. In is not open for the Appellate Tribunal to itself undertake adjudication of the Complaint on merits.