Consequential recovery proceedings cannot be challenged without appealing the underlying RERA orders.

Aggrieved persons obtained orders from the Adjudicating Authority under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (“RERA”) on various dates between 13 December 2019 and 10 November 2022.

The District Collector initiated recovery proceedings under the Revenue Recovery Act to implement those orders.

The appellants challenged the Collector’s proceedings, contending that they had not been made parties before the Adjudicating Authority and that this violated the principles of natural justice.

They did not appeal the Adjudicating Authority’s orders before the statutory Appellate Tribunal.

The Single Judge dismissed their writ petitions, prompting these intra-court appeals.

1. Whether the appellants could challenge the District Collector’s consequential recovery proceedings in writ petitions without first challenging the underlying Adjudicating Authority orders through the statutory appellate remedy.

2. Whether the appellants’ contention that they were not parties before the Adjudicating Authority, and were thereby denied natural justice, could be pursued through an appeal against those orders.

The Court relied on the RERA appellate scheme, referring to Section 44 as providing a remedy before the Appellate Tribunal for a person aggrieved by an order of the Adjudicating Authority, and Section 58 as providing a further appeal to the High Court.

Where the statute provides an appellate remedy to challenge the underlying order, a party cannot avoid that remedy by challenging only consequential recovery proceedings implementing the order; objections to the underlying decision must be raised through the statutory appeal.

The Collector’s recovery proceedings were consequential to the Adjudicating Authority’s orders, which remained unchallenged before the Appellate Tribunal.

The appellants’ non-joinder and natural-justice objections went to the validity of those underlying orders and could be raised in a statutory appeal.

Because the appellants instead challenged only the Collector’s implementation proceedings, the Court found no error in the Single Judge’s conclusion that the writ petitions were not maintainable on that basis.

It left open the appellants’ liberty to file appropriate statutory appeals and stated that, if appeals were filed, they would be entitled to seek exclusion of the time spent before the High Court when limitation was reckoned.

There was no order as to costs; the specified miscellaneous petitions, including the impleading applications, were closed.