Having resisted the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) employees' entry into their housing complex for the past two days, the agitating Campa Cola compound residents came around on Sunday and offered to co-operate with the civic officials in their task of disconnecting the essential supplies like electricity, water and piped domestic to 102 illegal flats in their housing society on Monday. They, however, steadfastly refused to hand over keys of their flats to the civic officials.
The agitating Campa Cola residents, occupying 35 illegal floors in seven buildings of the controversial housing complex at Worli in south-central Mumbai, softened their stand, after a delegation of residents, led by MNS MlA Bala Nandgaonkar, met Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Earlier on Sunday, the Campa Cola residents — as a last resort — shot off a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee. Describing their missive to Rashtrapati Bhavan as a ‘mercy petition’, the resident urged the President to intervene in the situation and prevent their flats from being demolished.
After assuring the aggrieved residents that he would look into their demand of getting 67,000 sq ft permissible FSI, the Chief Minister reportedly asked them to comply first with the Supreme Court's latest order. On June 3, the Supreme Court had rejected the Camap Cola residents' review petition seeking a stay on demolition of their illegal flats on ‘humanitarian’ grounds till the apex court decided their curative petition and directed the BMC to proceed with the due process of eviction followed by demolition.
Talking to mediapersons after their meeting with the CM Ashish Jalan, a Campa Cola compound resident who was a part of the delegation, said that the residents would let the BMC employees inside the complex on Monday to initiate the compliance of the Supreme Court. “As part of the exercise, we will let the BMC employees to cut off essential supplies to the illegal flats,” he said.
“The Chief Minister assured us that he would look into our demand of getting 67,000 sq ft permissible FSI and asked us to comply with the court orders. He said he would positively consider the demand and seek opinion of the concerned authorities. With that assurance, we are taking the first step of co-operating with the system to get our redevelopment rights,” Jalan said.
The BMC officials, who had for the past days been trying to convince the Campa Cola residents to comply with the Supreme Court, heaved a sigh of relief, as the protesting residents agreed to co-operate with them from Monday onwards.“The residents have finally relented. We will disconnect essential supplies to illegal flats on Monday,” Deputy Municipal Commissioner Anand Waghralkar said.
Given the Campa Cola compound residents have offered to co-operate from Monday onwards, the BMC may delay filing a contempt of court petition against them in the Supreme Court for their failure to comply with the apex court's June 3 order. “In the normal course, we were planning to file the contempt petition on Monday. We may delay it by a few days to see if the Campa Cola residents will deliver on their promise,” a senior civic official said.