Sections 43 & 44 RERA: UP REAT Appeal Rules the Exam Tests

What the REAT is, and why Section 43 creates it

Section 43(1) of the RERA Act, 2016 requires every State Government to establish a Real Estate Appellate Tribunal (REAT). In Uttar Pradesh that is the body a promoter or an allottee turns to when they are unhappy with an order of the Authority or the adjudicating officer. It sits above the regulator, not alongside it, and it exists so that nobody is stuck with a single-tier decision on a dispute that can run into crores.

Think of it as the second rung of the ladder. The Authority or the adjudicating officer decides first. If you lose, or you win but not fully, Section 43 gives you a forum to challenge that decision on both facts and law.

For the exam, remember the source of the obligation sits on the State, not the promoter. The State Government "shall establish" the tribunal. That mandatory word is the kind of thing an MCQ likes to test against a softer word like "may".

Composition and who is eligible to sit on it

The REAT is headed by a Chairperson and has two or more full-time members, a mix of judicial and technical. The Chairperson must be a retired Judge of a High Court. That is a fixed qualification and worth memorising exactly.

A judicial member needs at least 20 years of experience as an advocate. A technical member needs 20 years of experience in urban development, housing or infrastructure, or must have held the rank of Additional Secretary to the Government of India or an equivalent post. Those two 20-year thresholds are easy to confuse, so pin them down: advocacy for judicial, administration or sector experience for technical.

The exact number of members currently sitting on the UP REAT bench is not something you should quote from memory, because it changes with appointments. If a question asks for the minimum, the answer is a Chairperson plus two members. Confirm the current bench on up-rera.in rather than relying on a figure in a coaching note.

Section 44: who appeals, the 60-day window, and condonation

Section 44(2) is the one you will see most often. An appeal to the REAT must be filed within 60 days of the date the aggrieved person receives a copy of the order. Both sides can appeal, the promoter and the allottee, and so can the Authority itself.

The tribunal may condone a delay beyond 60 days if the appellant shows sufficient cause. "May" and "sufficient cause" are the operative words. Condonation is discretionary, not automatic. In Berry Developers v. Ummed Singh (September 2026), the UP REAT refused to condone a delay of 549 days, which tells you the discretion has real limits.

There is also a target on the other end. The REAT must endeavour to dispose of an appeal within 60 days of filing, and if it cannot, it has to record the reasons in writing. So two separate 60-day periods: one to file, one for disposal. Candidates mix these up constantly.

The Section 43(5) pre-deposit: the rule the exam loves

This is the centrepiece. Under Section 43(5), where a promoter appeals an order that requires it to pay money to an allottee, the tribunal will not entertain the appeal unless the promoter first deposits the total amount payable, including any interest. No deposit, no hearing.

The point candidates get wrong is that this cannot be watered down. It is not a discretionary 30% or a "deposit what you can" arrangement for promoters. In Shrivision Towers (UP REAT, late September 2026), the tribunal held that on a compensation order a promoter must deposit the full amount, not merely a part of it, applying the Supreme Court's reasoning in Newtech Promoters and Developers Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Uttar Pradesh.

This is exactly the kind of fact the exam will test as an MCQ: "Before a promoter's appeal is entertained, it must deposit (a) 30% (b) 50% (c) the full amount payable with interest (d) nothing." The answer is the full amount. Note too that the allottee faces no equivalent pre-deposit.

Pre-deposit and execution: the Deepak Jain point

There is a trap worth flagging. The Allahabad High Court has held that the Section 43(5) pre-deposit requirement applies to execution proceedings as well, not only to the primary appeal. This comes from Deepak Jain v. UP RERA, cited in the March 2026 UP REAT digest.

What that means in practice: a promoter cannot sidestep the deposit by letting the appeal stage pass and then contesting recovery when the allottee tries to execute the order. The obligation to put the money on the table follows the dispute into the execution stage.

For an exam candidate, the clean takeaway is that pre-deposit is not a one-time gate at the appeal door. A question might frame it as: "Does Section 43(5) apply only to the first appeal?" The answer, on the Allahabad High Court's view, is no. If you are advising a developer client, this is also a reason not to treat an adverse order as something you can simply out-wait.

The full appeal ladder and the UP procedure box

The ladder in Uttar Pradesh runs in a fixed order. The Authority or the adjudicating officer decides first. From there the matter goes to the UP REAT under Sections 43 and 44. A second appeal lies to the Allahabad High Court under Section 58, and only on a substantial question of law, not a rehearing of the facts. Beyond that, a Special Leave Petition to the Supreme Court is possible but exceptional.

On the UP-specific procedure: an appeal to the tribunal is filed in Form L, the Application to Appellate Tribunal. The court fee is Rs 1,000 for allottees and promoters alike, though a promoter must separately satisfy the Section 43(5) deposit. UP RERA also offers an e-filing option, so confirm the current mode on up-rera.in before you file.

Section 79 sits in the background: civil courts cannot entertain matters that the Authority, the adjudicating officer or the tribunal is empowered to decide. That bar is a common MCQ companion to this chapter.

What to do with this before your exam

Build a small fact card and drill it: two 20-year thresholds, two 60-day periods, Form L, Rs 1,000 fee, and the full-amount pre-deposit under Section 43(5). Those are the testable numbers, and the questions almost always turn on one of them being swapped for a wrong figure.

Pair this chapter with the money sections it sits next to. The delay interest a promoter owes under Section 18 is often the very amount that then has to be deposited on appeal, so our walkthrough of how UP calculates Section 18 delay interest connects directly here. If the complaint stage is still fuzzy, the Form M and Form N complaint guide covers what happens before an order is ever passed.

Once the facts are solid, test them under time pressure. Running Chapter VII questions in a timed mock test is the fastest way to catch whether you still confuse the filing window with the disposal target. For practising consultants, the same knowledge decides whether you advise a client to appeal or to pay and move on.