Can a Real Estate Regulatory Authority direct the jurisdictional Sub-Registrar Office to unilaterally cancel registered instruments – Macrotech Developers Ltd Vs. Joint Sub-Registrar and Ors. (Bombay High Court), Writ Petition (L) No. 18256 of 2025 | Order dated 06.10.2025
The controversy before the Bombay High Court arose from what began as a routine default under an agreement for sale, but gradually unfolded into a complex jurisdictional puzzle involving Maha-RERA and the registration machinery.
Macrotech Developers Ltd., the promoter of a real estate project known as “Lodha Bellmondo” near the Mumbai–Pune Expressway at Pune, had entered into an Agreement for Sale on 9 May 2018 with two allottees for Flat No. 404 in the project. The project itself stood registered with the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority under Registration No. P52100000283. Over time, however, the allottees fell into persistent default in making payments as required under the agreement.
Faced with continued non-payment, Macrotech Developers issued a termination notice on 13 May 2021 and thereafter turned to the forum specifically created to regulate real estate transactions—the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority. Invoking Section 31 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the developer filed a complaint seeking directions to the defaulting allottees to execute and register a Deed of Cancellation of the Agreement for Sale. Anticipating resistance, the developer also sought an alternative relief: that, in the event of non-compliance, Maha-RERA appoint a fit and proper person, including one of its own officers, to execute and register the Deed of Cancellation, and direct the concerned Sub-Registrar to register the same.
On 14 August 2024, Maha-RERA allowed the complaint. The order, which also covered another similar dispute relating to a different flat in the same project, granted the reliefs sought by the developer. Yet, even after this order, the allottees did not comply. What followed was the next legal step—execution.
Macrotech Developers invoked Section 40 of the RERA Act and initiated non-compliance proceedings before Maha-RERA. The execution proceedings, however, took an unexpected turn. By an order dated 28 November 2024, instead of appointing a fit person to execute the Deed of Cancellation in accordance with its earlier directions, the executing authority of MahaRERA suo motu directed the Joint Sub-Registrar of Assurances, Pune, to cancel the registered Agreement for Sale itself.
This direction brought the Sub-Registrar into the spotlight. When the execution order was placed before him, he refused to act. By a letter dated 13 February 2025, the Joint Sub-Registrar made it clear that MahaRERA had no authority to direct unilateral cancellation of a registered instrument. With an execution order in hand but no authority willing to implement it, the developer found itself in a legal cul-de-sac.
It was in these circumstances that Macrotech Developers approached the Bombay High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeking to enforce the MahaRERA execution order against the Sub-Registrar. Recognising the wider implications of the issue, the High Court sought the assistance of the Advocate General for the State of Maharashtra.
The Advocate General took the Court through the scheme of the RERA Act, drawing attention to Section 11(5), which permits cancellation of allotment by a promoter only in accordance with the agreement for sale; Section 34(g), which casts a duty on the Authority to ensure compliance with the Act; Section 37, which empowers the Authority to issue binding directions; and Section 40(2), which provides that orders passed under RERA are to be enforced in the prescribed manner. He then placed these provisions alongside Rule 4 of the Maharashtra RERA Rules, 2017, which equates enforcement of RERA orders to execution of civil court decrees, and Order XXI Rule 34 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which prescribes the manner in which courts execute decrees directing execution of documents.
The discussion inevitably reached Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963—a provision that expressly empowers civil courts to cancel registered instruments and mandates intimation of such cancellation to the registering authority. According to the Advocate General, this power lay with courts alone and could not be assumed by MahaRERA, particularly when the agreement in question was never alleged to be void or voidable.
The developer sought to meet this argument by relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Deccan Paper Mills Company Limited v. Regency Mahavir Properties, where an arbitral tribunal had exercised powers akin to those under Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act. The High Court, however, found the reliance misplaced. Unlike in Deccan Paper Mills, the validity of the Agreement for Sale was not in issue in the present case.
As the narrative unfolded, the High Court identified the real source of the problem. MahaRERA had already granted an effective and legally sustainable remedy in its original order—the appointment of a fit person to execute the Deed of Cancellation. Yet, at the execution stage, that relief was overlooked, and an altogether different direction was issued, one that neither the statute supported nor the petitioner had sought. The result was an execution order that could not be carried out.
Although the developer had not directly challenged the MahaRERA execution order, the High Court held that it was not constrained by the form of the relief sought. Exercising its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226, the Court emphasised its power to mould reliefs to do complete justice.
Without pronouncing on the larger question of whether MahaRERA can ever direct unilateral cancellation of registered instruments, the Bombay High Court charted a practical way forward. It granted liberty to Macrotech Developers to return to MahaRERA and file a fresh application seeking execution of the original order dated 14 August 2024. The Authority was directed to decide such application expeditiously, in accordance with law, and uninfluenced by its earlier execution order, within eight weeks. With this direction, the Court brought the story full circle, leaving the parties to resume the process at the point where it had first gone astray.
Author Bio
