The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act has quietly rewritten one corner of the RERA Act that most homebuyers never read: Section 68, which deals with what happens when someone defies a Real Estate Appellate Tribunal order. Where the provision previously allowed up to a year of imprisonment for an allottee who did not comply, it now allows only a monetary penalty, capped at 10% of the property's cost, according to coverage from The Realty Today, legal newsletter publisher KSandK, and a Bar and Bench column examining the change. The amendment took effect in May 2026.
1. What Section 68 Actually Covers
Section 68 is not the provision builders use against buyers for late payments or routine contract disputes; those are handled through separate mechanisms. It applies specifically when a Real Estate Appellate Tribunal has already issued an order, often in disputes between co-allottees or over possession terms, and the person it was directed at simply refuses to follow it. Before this amendment, an allottee in that position could theoretically face jail time in addition to a fine. Now, the consequence is a capped monetary penalty only.
2. Builder Obligations Are Untouched
This is the detail worth underlining for anyone worried this is a step backward for buyer protection: the amendment touches only Section 68, which governs allottee non-compliance. Promoter obligations and penalties under Sections 59 through 67 of the RERA Act, including imprisonment provisions for certain builder-side violations, were not changed. Your rights to pursue a developer over delayed possession, missing amenities, or a mismatch between promised and delivered specifications, under Sections 12, 14, 18 and 19, remain exactly as they were.
3. Why Some Lawyers Call This a Minor Change
Legal commentary on the amendment, including the Bar and Bench column titled "Jan Vishwas and the wrong end of RERA," points out that imprisonment was rarely invoked against allottees in practice even before this change, so the practical shift in day-to-day enforcement may be limited. The same commentary argues the more significant, still-unresolved issue is how reliably RERA authorities actually execute their own orders through recovery certificates once a tribunal has ruled, something this amendment does not address either way. A softer deterrent on paper is only a real concern if enforcement elsewhere was already strong, and the consensus view is that it generally was not.
4. What It Means for You as a Buyer
If you are evaluating a RERA-registered project in Bengaluru or Chennai, whether that's a resale flat, a unit under construction such as Meenakshi High Life behind Manyata Tech Park, or a pre-launch booking, this amendment changes essentially nothing about your own position as a buyer dealing with a developer. It is relevant mainly if you ever find yourself on the other side of a tribunal order, for instance in a dispute with a co-owner or over how a settlement is implemented. For the far more common scenario, holding a builder to its RERA commitments, the law is unchanged.
The Bottom Line
The Jan Vishwas Act's amendment to Section 68 removes a rarely-used imprisonment provision for allottees who defy a tribunal order, replacing it with a fine capped at 10% of property cost. It does not touch builder-side penalties, and it does not weaken a buyer's standing against a developer under RERA. The amendment is best read as a narrow, largely procedural change rather than a shift in the balance of power between buyers and builders. Talk to our team if you have questions about a specific project's RERA compliance before you book.
