MUMBAI: Bombay High Court has directed a showcause notice be issued for contempt of court to the managing director of a construction company after the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) said its claim of depositing Rs 6 crore with it, towards arrears of rent, was false. In fact, two out of its three cheques issued in Aug and Sept 2022 had bounced.
Justices Mahesh Sonak and Kamal Khata on Friday heard a petition by five out of 133 eligible tenants of an erstwhile chawl at Bharat Nagar, BKC, Bandra (East).
In June 2004, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Rahiwasi Seva Sangh SRA (proposed) and individual tenants entered into a redevelopment agreement with Satish Enterprises. The petition claimed that SRA permitted Foremost Realtors Pvt Ltd to replace it. In 2011, all their houses were demolished.
The developer stopped paying monthly transit rent from 2014 onwards.
The petition said SRA is not taking any action against the developer.
The petitioners’ advocates, Tanveer and Mariam Nizam, said their clients were not paid transit rent for several years.
On Aug 9, the developer’s advocate, Shakeeb Ansari, said it had deposited Rs 6 crore with SRA and SRA is not disbursing the amount to eligible tenants. The judges directed SRA to file an affidavit giving full details of the rent arrears payable.
On Friday, SRA’s advocate, Jadgish Reddy, submitted SRA’s affidavit in which it said the developer’s oral statement to the court was “totally incorrect, false and misleading”. SRA said Foremost was liable to pay Rs 4.5 crore as rent arrears till June 2022. It paid one cheque of Rs 2.1 crore for rent up to June 2021. It issued two cheques, on Aug 31 and Sept 30, 2022, for Rs 2.4 crore which were dishonoured after the developer stopped payments under them.
SRA informed that up to July 2024, the developer was liable to pay the five petitioners more than Rs 1.2 crore rent arrears.
Questioned by the judges, Ansari said he had made the statement on instructions of the developer’s in-house counsel. The judges, therefore, decided to issue notice to its MD. As Ansari did not know his name, he agreed to inform it on Aug 26.
The judges directed the HC registry to issue a notice to the MD “to show us as to why action under Contempt of Courts Act should not be taken against him” because, according to Ansari, the statement about paying Rs 6 crore to SRA was based on instructions.
