Overview
- A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N V Anjaria held that leasing a residential unit does not by itself show a commercial purchase under Section 2(1)(d) of the 1986 Act.
- The Court set aside the NCDRC’s dismissal of Vinit Bahri’s case against MGF Developers and sent the complaint back for a decision on merits.
- Builders must establish, on a preponderance of probabilities, a dominant commercial purpose with a close and direct nexus to profit-making to exclude a buyer from being a consumer.
- The judgment notes that buying multiple units does not automatically trigger the exclusion and highlights the statute’s carve-out for livelihood-based self-employment.
- The dispute involves MGF’s ‘The Villas’ project in Gurugram, with booking in 2005, possession claimed in January 2015, and the unit allegedly leased from March 2015.