Mhada allowed to acquire homes in rickety buildings

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has allowed Mhada to take over possession of five homes in a dilapidated building at Bhendi Bazaar after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) informed the court that five of the occupants were not reachable, and it would not be possible to demolish the building without vacating residents from the premises legally. The court said that in such a situation the Mhada was permitted to serve two-week notice to the owners, and if the respondents did not reply, Mhada could take over the premises and hand it over to BMC for demolition.

The bench of Justice Gautam Patel was hearing a suit filed by the Haji Ismail Yusuf Musafir Khana Trust against nine occupants of the building who refused to vacate the building despite the fact that the BMC had served several vacation notices to them. The building owned by the trust  is being developed under the cluster development project being carried out by the Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT). The BMC had served  notices to the occupants as the building was extremely dilapidated. However, as the tenants refused to vacate the trust approached the court.

During the hearing, four of the nine tenants submitted that they would vacate the premises by July 2 but Mhada informed that five premises were locked and the owners or heirs were unreachable and hence those premises could not be vacated. Thus it could not be demolished.

After hearing the submissions, the court directed Mhada to serve a two-week notice to the five occupants and also to paste notices on the doors. The court further said that if after expiry of the notice the occupants do not turn up then Mhada was permitted to take over the property after following due course of law and hand over possession  to SBUT.