The objector said the developer had concealed a pending suit and an injunction when applying to register the project, and that his own written objection had simply been misplaced by the authority. The Court accepted that a promoter must disclose encumbrances and that objections must be considered, but held that where the developer holds prima facie title with a civil court injunction in his favour, RERA is not required to reject the registration, and the objector’s remedy lies in the civil court.
Chennai: The Madras High Court has declined to quash a project registration granted by the Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority, holding that where there is a genuine dispute over title, it is not for the regulator to decide it, and the contesting parties must approach the competent civil court [N. Balakrishnan v. Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority and Another].
Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy disposed of the writ petition, keeping open the petitioner’s liberty to pursue his remedies in the civil court.
The background
The petitioner claimed to own a property in Tambaram taluk, inherited from his father, and to hold electricity, gas and telephone connections at the address. The second respondent, who also claimed title, had earlier filed a suit against the petitioner seeking a permanent injunction restraining him from interfering with the property, and had obtained an interim injunction, which the petitioner said had been in force while the suit remained pending for over three years.
The second respondent then applied to register a development project over the property with TNRERA, and registration was granted in April 2026. The petitioner objected to the Authority, and separately alleged that when he had earlier sought information under the Right to Information Act he had been told no registration had been granted, only to discover later that it had. He also alleged that the Authority had admitted misplacing his objection.
The competing cases
For the petitioner, it was argued that while TNRERA does not decide title like a civil court, Section 4 of the RERA Act requires an applicant for registration to disclose encumbrances, and that the developer had disclosed neither the pending suit nor the dispute between the parties. Having himself thought a dispute existed, gone to the civil court and obtained an injunction, the developer could not treat the matter as one with nothing to disclose, and the suppression, coupled with the Authority’s failure to consider the objection, meant the registration could not stand.
For the second respondent, it was submitted that the petitioner had raised the same objection before the revenue authorities, the planning authority and the land administration authority, and had each time been directed to approach the civil court, which he had declined to do. The injunction obtained by the developer remained in force, the petitioner’s application to reject the plaint had been dismissed, and the petitioner had no title, right or interest in the property; there being no encumbrance, nothing statutorily disclosable had been suppressed.
The Authority submitted that although there had been a transfer of office, it had applied its mind to the available material and granted registration in accordance with law.
What the Court held
The Court accepted the petitioner’s legal premise up to a point. Under Section 4(2)(l) of the Act, a promoter must make a declaration about legal title and that the land is free from encumbrances, and where, prima facie, the proponent does not qualify as someone holding title, or the encumbrance is such that registration cannot be granted, the Authority may in a given case reject the registration.
But the Court drew a firm line at disputed title:
“…when there are disputed questions of title, it is not for the TNRERA to go into the same and decide the issue itself. It is for the persons to approach the competent Civil Court.”
Applying that, the Court noted that the civil court had found a prima facie case in favour of the second respondent and that the injunction was operating against the petitioner. In those circumstances, this was not a case in which the Authority was required to consider rejecting the registration. The mere grant of registration, the Court held, would not prejudice the petitioner in canvassing his plea before the civil court, whether by a counter-claim, a separate suit or a counter-petition in the pending suit.
The Court also recorded that the petitioner had been relegated to the civil court by every earlier authority he had approached, and that the project was registered and construction was at an advanced stage. On the authority relied on by the second respondent, a coordinate Bench decision, the Court noted that it had not examined the requirements of the Act in detail, but the outcome did not turn on distinguishing it.
Finding no merit, the Court disposed of the petition while keeping open the petitioner’s liberty to approach the civil court.
Why it matters
The order marks out the boundary of a regulator’s competence, and it does so in a way that cuts against a common tactic. A person who is losing, or reluctant to fight, a title dispute in the civil court will sometimes try to reopen it collaterally by objecting to the opponent’s RERA registration, on the theory that the regulator, in verifying title and encumbrances, must effectively decide the ownership question. The Court’s answer is that the regulator’s title inquiry is a threshold and prima facie one: it can refuse registration where the applicant plainly lacks title or where a disqualifying encumbrance appears on the face of it, but it cannot resolve a genuine contest between two claimants, which remains the exclusive province of the civil court.
The presence of the injunction was decisive. Because a civil court had already found a prima facie case for the developer and restrained the objector, the regulator was faced not with an obvious defect in title but with a live dispute in which the developer currently held the better of it in the competent forum. To have cancelled the registration in that situation would have been to prefer the objector’s version of the title over the civil court’s own prima facie assessment, which is precisely the inversion the Court refused.
Two points temper the outcome. The Court did not condone the Authority’s handling of the objection; the RTI confusion and the admitted misplacing of the written objection are recorded, and the Court affirmed as a matter of principle that a statutory authority must consider objections from third parties rather than merely note them as lost. What saved the registration was not the quality of the Authority’s process but the state of the title contest, in which the objector had no subsisting right that RERA was bound to protect. And the order decides nothing about who owns the land: the petitioner’s remedy in the civil court is expressly preserved, and the registration is without prejudice to that contest. What the objector could not do was use the writ court and the regulator as a substitute for the suit he had been repeatedly told to bring.
Case Title: N. Balakrishnan v. Tamil Nadu Real Estate Regulatory Authority and Another [W.P. No. 32211 of 2026]
Bench: Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, High Court of Judicature at Madras
Date of Order: September 9, 2026 | Neutral Citation: 2026:MHC:3769
Appearances: Senior Advocate G. Rajagopalan for the petitioner. Advocate Amirtapoonkodi Dinakaran for TNRERA. Senior Advocate T.V. Ramanujam for the second respondent.
Status: Writ petition disposed of. Registration not cancelled. Petitioner’s liberty to approach the civil court kept open.