Raze 417 buildings: Bombay HC to DGCA

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue demolition notices to 417 residential and commercial buildings located in Kurla and Santa Cruz that have violated height norms by the Airports Authority of India (AAI). The court also directed the DGCA to take it up on an urgent basis and to be ruthless in the implementation of the same as it was a question of safety of aeroplanes, the lives of people travelling in planes and those living in the vicinity of the airport. The court asked for the notices to be served to both the owners as well as the collector.

A division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice C.V. Bhadang was hearing a petition filed by advocate Yeshwant Shenoy, who had claimed that civic authorities, in connivance with the AAI officials, had allowed residential and commercial buildings to come up in the vicinity of the airports. This led to the radars not functioning, thus posing problems to the pilots and risking the lives of people in the aeroplanes as well as those living in the vicinity.

On Wednesday while referring to surveys of the AAI of 2010-11 and 2015-16, Mr  Shenoy informed the court that a total of 417 structures were found to be violating height norms. “The aeronautical study conducted by the AAI first permits the buildings to come up and then another similar study says that the buildings have violated norms. There is a vested interest aimed at benefiting the builders and fleecing the buyers who will get affected due to the survey,” said Mr Shenoy.

The counsel for Mumbai International Airport Ltd submitted to the court that it had informed the DGCA about the violations but nothing had come of it. MIAL sought directions from court to initiate issuance of demolition notices to individual owners of buildings and the collector.

While directing the DGCA to issue the notices within two months, Justice Kanade said, “The DGCA should take this up on an urgent basis and ruthlessly implement the same as it is a matter of safety of airplanes, lives of people travelling in them and those people living in the vicinity of the airport.” The court, while refusing  DGCA’s request for extension of up to four months to issue the notices, posted the matter for hearing on April 27.