MUMBAI: Bombay high court censured Mhada on Monday for the illegal and high-handed actions of its executive engineers in issuing over 900 notices for redevelopment of premises by dubbing them dangerous, trampling on the constitutional rights of owners of cessed buildings and, in many cases, also of their tenants.
The HC dubbed such notices and the redevelopment powers invoked by the executive engineers and the Mhada repair board, without any jurisdiction, a “regime of colossal arbitrariness and abuse of powers by such officials in committing bald, brazen and patent acts of illegalities”. Observing that a mere stay of the notices — those that Mhada did not withdraw later — was not enough, the court ordered an enquiry by a two-member panel of former HC judge Justice J P Devadhar and retired principal district judge Vilas Dongre to examine all 935 notices issued under Section 79A of the Mhada Act.
This section enables the authority to acquire dangerous cessed buildings and carry out redevelopment when both the owners and tenants’ associations fail to do so after the building is declared dilapidated and dangerous.
The order of the high court bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Arif Doctor came on a batch of petitions against the notices issued by the Mumbai Building Repairs and Reconstruction Board, a statutory unit of Mhada.
Section 79A has had a vexed presence. It was introduced in Dec 2022 to enable the redevelopment of a building on the premise that the structure is dangerous. “However, whether a building is dangerous or not cannot be the ipse dixit of the concerned officers…and is required to be decided as stipulated by law,” the HC said.
The two-member committee named by the Bombay high court will also examine subsequent actions to withdraw such notices, and the role of the officials and motives, if any, in the issuance of the notices.
Justice Kulkarni, who authored and read out the order in court, said the “committee shall examine the purpose, basis, intention, and the authority of the vice-chairman to issue the SOP dated Dec 5 2024”. The SOP creates a parallel machinery and cannot be interpreted by officials to assume power to issue notices, the HC said.
The section was introduced since Mhada said there were over 13,000 old and dilapidated cessed buildings in Mumbai constructed prior to 1940. Mhada was tasked with their repairs.
The law was also amended to enable owners with 51% consent of tenants to redevelop, but Mhada said despite the repair board declaring buildings “dangerously dilapidated”, owners do not come forward to redevelop.
The HC said executive engineers invoke Section 79A by a “visual examination” of a building to declare it dilapidated and proceed to issue notices for redevelopment.
“By issuance of these notices, ultimately what is sought to be achieved, and certainly at the behest of vested interests, is a fait accompli by exploiting the incentives on the redevelopment by such vested interests by misuse of the official machinery of Mhada and the repair board for the benefit of either the landlord or tenants.”
The HC stressed, “The issuance of such notices by such officials in the manner as resorted is only to enable and aid the sinister motives, to be achieved at the instance of one party against the other, in the redevelopment of a building without verifying whether it needs to go for redevelopment.”
The court posted the matter on Aug 12 and called for a report from the committee in six months.
The court rejected a plea by Mhada lawyer P G Lad for a stay of the order.
