Read Time: 04 minutes

The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by Union Minister Narayan Rane, seeking regularisation of illegal portions of his Juhu home. 

However, the court has granted him a six week stay on any coercive order to approach the Supreme Court. 

A division bench of Justice RD Dhaka and Justice MG Sewilkar, passed the said order on a petition filed by a company called 'Kaalkaa Real Estates Private'. 

Kaalkaa Real Estate's, which is owned by Rane, challenged BMC's order rejecting their application for regularisation of the alleged illegal structures and also sought to stay orders of demolition of the building by the BMC. 

Senior Advocate Milind Sathe, appearing for Kalkaa Real Estates argued that the actions of BMC are politically motivated, given that Rane belongs to party opposing the current Chief Minister of the state. 

However, the bench observed that "since prima facie construction carried out is completely unauthorised, the question of political rivalry does not arise".

Sathe further argued that the corporation should have considered the FSI available on the date the application for regularisation was made. Sathe sought to separate the leased land of over 1178 square meters from the total plot of 2010 square meters. 

On the other hand, Senior Advocate Aspi Chinoy appearing for BMC, argued that as per the property card, the total area of the plot is 2209 square meters and there is no sub-division between the plots because part thereof was leased in favour of the company. 

Chinoy further argued that Rane had built up three times the sanctioned area and that all this talk of victimisation did not look good, when spaces that were supposed to be left open were used to increase the built-up area. 

While dismissing, the petition, the division bench observed:

"We are not inclined to accept the contention of Mr Sathe. Merely because lease is granted in favour of petitioner 1 (Rane) there is no automatic sub-division of the plot. The BMC rightly considered application. In our view Mr Chinoy rightly submitted there is no sub division of the plot."