MUMBAI: In a relief to 126 flat buyers in Thane, the Bombay High Court set aside a May 2024 order of a Thane court that stayed construction in an almost complete building.
The HC held that the change of location of one building among nine in Vasant Lawns was valid and permissible under the Development Control Regulations.
Housing societies of the other seven buildings objected to a 2005 plan being revised in 2017 and the location of building number 8 being shifted, thus reducing the green area for all.
Justice Milind Jadhav said the Thane court “miserably failed” to consider how the stay would cause grave hardship to the 126 flat purchasers who invested their own savings or took bank loans when the construction of the building commenced in 2008 and is now on the verge of completion.
The High Court reminded the district court that the fundamental principle when granting a stay is to “adopt whichever course appears to have a lower risk of injustice” if it turns out to be wrong.
Justice Jadhav noted the grievance of the seven housing societies was “unsustainable” as the green cover, he observed, in a 2022 plan had increased from 9,000 sq m to 9,300 sq m.
The High Court also held as “absurd and impermissible” the Thane court’s directions of revised sanction plans being illegal and its order of inquiry against officers of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).
The High Court held that it was “not a case of illegal development” by Sheth Developers. The original development plan approved in 2005 for a residential complex of nine buildings was modified eight times till 2022. In 2008, the phase-wise construction appears to have begun, the High Court said. Buildings 1-7 were built and handed over to flat purchasers. Building number 8 is almost complete and flats sold to 126 purchasers. Building number nine is ready till the plinth level.
Petitioners Chetan Shelke and 10 other flat buyers in building number eight, through their senior counsel Sharan Jagtiani, argued before the High Court that the building is almost ready and the builder and the purchasers cannot be deprived of their flats. when original sanctioned plans were revised through the years to utilise the entire development potential with additionally available TDR, resulting in floors or flats being added to the first seven buildings as well Sheth Developers, through senior counsel Vineet Naik, Chetan Kapadia, and advocate Samit Shukla, said the seven societies’ main grievance was the green area was reduced by shifting of building number eight, but that in fact, was not so. Besides, the law did not prevent relocation so long as the RG area was intact.Senior counsel Ram Apte for TMC said the original suit of 2021 by the seven housing societies before the Thane court is not maintainable. Besides, the Thane court failed to consider that they challenged permission granted by TMC five years earlier, with delay unexplained, Apte said, and the High Court agreed.
