The stage is now set for the demolition of 35 illegal floors spread across seven buildings in Campa Cola compound at Worli in south-central Mumbai, with the Bombay High Court refusing to grant ad-interim relief to the affected residents.
A HC division of Justices Abhay Oka and AR Joshi on Monday relied on a recent Supreme Court verdict upholding the notice issued by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 2005 for the demolition of illegal floors, while refusing to grant ad-interim relief sought of the two of the affected housing societies.
“At this stage no case is made out for any relief, this court cannot interfere with the BMC action which has commenced on the basis of the apex court order. Further, the society has filed a review petition wherein no stay has been granted by the apex court. In these circumstances we cannot interfere in the proceedings,” the HC bench observed.
The petitioners, who are legal occupants living in BY Apartments and Mid-Town Apartments, had urged the court that they be made available a detailed programme by the BMC as to how it would go about the demolition of the illegal floors in the affected buildings. They also wanted to know from the BMC as to whether the demolition would affect their legal flats.
The petitioners’ argument was that the water tank, lifts and electricity boxes were on the top floors and the BMC could not just pull down the structure without taking these factors into consideration.
The petitioners had also told the court that the BMC did not have the experience in demolishing part of a residential structure, a factor that was crucial in the light of the fact that such a demolition pose problems to other legal occupants in the affected buildings.
In its response to the issues raised by the petitioners, the BMC had told the court that it had appointed a structural engineer to assess the buildings and that it would carry out the demolition in a phased manner, causing minimal inconvenience to the legal occupants.
Now with the High Court having refused to intervene in the matter adjudicated by the Supreme Court in February this year, the BMC — which had on April 26 served eviction notices on 140 families residing in seven buildings — is expected to begin demolition of 35 illegal floors in seven buildings located on the Campa Cola compound, on May 2.
In its ruling given on February 27 this year, the apex court had given a go-ahead to the BMC to pull down all the illegal floors in the seven buildings, where only five floors are legal.
The seven buildings are Esha Ekta Apartments Cooperative Housing Society, Patel Apartments Cooperative Housing Society, Orchid Cooperative Housing Society, BY Apartments Cooperative Housing Society, Midtown Apartments Cooperative Housing Society and Shubh Apartment Cooperative Housing Society.
The BMC had only granted the builders permission to construct only up to five floors. However, the developers raised Orchid building to 17 floors, Midtown to 20 floors, Esha Ekta to eight floors, BY and Patel apartments to six floors, and Shubh Apartments to seven floors.
The seven residential apartments have been constructed on a plot of land leased to Pure Drinks in 1955. Having received BMC’s approval for development in 1980, Pure Drinks and builders Yusuf Patel, BK Gupta and PSB Construction Company went ahead and constructed seven buildings, including two of them with 17 and 20 floors, without getting their building plans approved duly by the civic body.