MUMBAI: Bombay High Court on Friday rapped BMC and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) over constructions on a 6,000 sq m plot reserved for a playground next to a school in Khar (W), flouting Supreme Court’s three-decade-old order.
“No construction activity can be permitted in respect of the area which is earmarked for a playground,” said Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Bharati Dangre while hearing a PIL by three local residents — Dileep Saptarshi, Robert Wiesinger and Sunil Bhatia.
In an earlier round of litigation, the Supreme Court in April 1995 had upheld the HC order and directed that the plot be demarcated and no encroachments be permitted on it. In 2019, an SRA project began on the adjacent plot. When excavation commenced on the reserved plot in Aug 2021, the residents moved the HC. In Nov 2021, the HC stayed further construction on it.
On Friday, senior advocate Gayatri Singh, for the petitioners, said despite SC and HC’s orders, the developer is carrying out construction work on the reserved plot. The developer’s advocate denied it. To the judge’s query about who is the authority for the removal of encroachments on the part of the reserved plot as per the city survey officer’s report, BMC’s advocate Dhruti Kapadia replied, “It is SRA.” Singh said the reserved plot belongs to BMC and it is BMC’s responsibility to remove encroachments. Kapadia said, “there is an SRA scheme.”
SRA’s advocate Jagdish Reddy said, “the plot admittedly belongs to BMC,” but some slum dwellers encroached upon a portion of it. The judges said they were “startled by the submissions of statutory bodies.” “It defies logic that they are saying that the ground can be permitted to be encroached upon,” the CJ said. Singh also informed that SRA issued a letter of intent to the developer, reducing the reserved area to 4,000 sq m.
“It was reduced but now it has been retained,” said Reddy. The judges questioned how SRA could have reduced it. “Can we permit you to act in defiance of the order passed by the Supreme Court? Did you advise (the developer) ‘reduce it (area), I will deal with the court’?” the CJ asked.
The judges cautioned Kapadia not to make “off-the-cuff” statements that BMC has no power to remove encroachments and there is an SRA scheme. They said if BMC says it does not have the power to remove encroachments, it does not have a right to continue as a statutory body. “This is for future generations… the playground,” the CJ said. They directed SRA and BMC to inform on Feb 12 if demarcation of the plot is done and whether construction has taken place on it.
