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Synopsis

The Bombay High Court’s division bench comprising of Justice GS Patel and Justice Kamal Khata recently expressed their disapproval of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for not having an organized system to oversee the development of buildings owned by the body.

The high court was hearing a plea filed by 30 residents who were residing in a structure owned by BMC in Byculla.

The division bench in its order said that it was an unacceptable state of affairs when it comes to development supervised by the MCGM.

“To begin with, we are constrained to observe that this is an unacceptable state of affairs from every perspective that when it comes to development supervised by the MCGM, such as the present one, where MCGM is the owner of the building that goes into redevelopment, there is no structured development supervision system in place,” the bench said.

The high court in its order said that the MHADA and SRA had developed a fairly sophisticated system and there was no reason why MCGM should be excluded from this discipline.

The high court also added that “The SRA and MHADA also have systems to ensure that the work of development of rehab or reconstructed premises continues on a specified schedule and if not, the developer is held responsible, given a warning and if there is no improvement is forced to be substituted. We see no reason why the MCGM should be excluded from this practice either,” the court said.

The bench directed the copy of the order to be communicated to the BMC commissioner.

Case title: Shakil Mohammed & Ors vs State of Maharashtra & Ors