Court raps BMC for not razing illegal structures

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has chided the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for not demolishing unauthorised structures on a plot that was under the receivership of the court receiver since 2010 despite a court direction to do so in June, 2018.

The BMC was at the receiving end of the court’s ire after it filed a notice of motion in a suit seeking directions of the HC as to what procedure to follow while carrying out the demolition of 108 structures that exist on the plot.

The HC rebuke resulted in the BMC withdrawing the notice of motion.   

According to advocate Kiran Jain who appeared for the petitioners in the suit, the plot in question is a two-acre plot at Oshiwara on which Bhavsar Construction had acquired a license to develop a residential complex from MMRDA in 1994.

Bhavsar had collected earnest money from around 100 flat purchasers and deposited the same with MMRDA towards license fees.

However, in 1999 SAFEMA deemed the plot to be forfeited on the grounds that Bhavsar had acquired the development rights from illegally acquired money.

The flat purchasers challenged the forfeiture before the SAFEMA tribunal in 2009, which set aside the forfeiture and directed the SAFEMA authorities to give the flat purchasers a hearing.

In 2015, the court receiver wrote to the BMC to demolish encroachments but no action was taken as a result of which the receiver filed a report in the HC seeking directions to the BMC to demolish the illegal structures.

On December 4, 2015 the bench of justice S.J. Kathawalla directed BMC to demolish the structure but the BMC filed the notice of motion.  

The bench of justice Gautam Patel while pointing to the responsibility of the BMC reminded that they were an agent of the court and asked them to comply with the order of Justice Kathawalla by
July 8.