The Bombay High Court held that a promoter must make the mandatory pre-deposit under Section 43(5) of RERA before an appellate tribunal will even hear an application to condone a late-filed appeal. It ruled that a condonation application has no separate existence from the appeal itself, so the same deposit bar applies at both stages.
What this changes for a title check
Promoters have sometimes tried to delay compliance by filing a late appeal and litigating the condonation question first, without depositing the amount ordered by the RERA authority. This ruling closes that route: no pre-deposit means the delay application itself will not be entertained, regardless of how meritorious the delay excuse is. For an allottee's lawyer chasing an unpaid RERA order, the practical step this creates is to check at the first appellate hearing whether the promoter has actually deposited the ordered sum, since that fact alone can dispose of the appeal without reaching the merits.