BMC withdraws demolition notice to 9-storeyed Kemps Corner building after HC rap

The Bombay High Court criticized the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for issuing a demolition notice to a building due to lack of records, and not doing the same for other prominent buildings like the chief minister's bungalow. The notice was withdrawn.

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) withdrew their demolition notice issued to a ground-plus-nine-storeyed building at Kemps Corner, for it not being it in their records, after the Bombay high court rapped them saying it is possible that the civic body doesn’t have any record of prominent buildings such as bungalows of the chief minister and chief justice.

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The court said that a notice should not have been issued to pull down the entire Dhanvantari Bhavan Co-operative Housing Society building only because the BMC failed to locate building permissions or approved plans in its record.

The division bench of justice Gautam Patel and justice Kamal Khata said that in the ‘D’ Ward itself there are buildings of which the MCGM might not have records — including the municipal commissioner’s bungalow, the bungalow of the governor of RBI, that of the chairman of the Port Trust, the chief minister’s bungalow and the chief justice’s bungalow.

“There are likely to be no completion certificates for any of these structures nor any records of permissions or approvals,” said the bench.“There is nothing to show that the MCGM has taken similar action uniformly and of this kind against these structures,” the judges added.

The judges said they were irked to note that the civic body had issued notice to the Dhanvantari Bhavan following a complaint lodged by two of its members.

“The only basis on which the notice proceeds is that the building is not and cannot be said to be a tolerated structure since the MCGM (BMC) does not have any records in its possession of permissions or approvals,” said the bench.

The civic officials failed to take into consideration the fact that the building existed since 1970 and had been assessed for municipal taxes, added the bench.

“It has absolutely no consideration whatsoever of the longevity of the structure or the fact that it has been assessed to property and other municipal taxes from 1970 or so,” said the bench.

It added that “the absence of a record cannot be the only reason for the MCGM to take action”. It said this is especially so given that in 1970, a considerable part of municipal records had been lost in a fire and therefore, possibly, the BMC might not have any record of several other buildings like the high court building itself or several other well-known structures in the locality.

Regarding Dhanvantari Bhavan, the court said while the society had a copy of the completion certificate issued by their architect on August 1, 1970, the civic body could not point out “a single specific irregularity”.

Though the civic body maintained that the entire building was illegal since no approved plans and building permissions were in place, the judges said the demolition notice for the entire building was a fall out of the dispute between the two members and the society.

The court rejected the complaining members’ plea that as the BMC could not find plans or records, the entire structure must be deemed irregular no matter how long it has been in existence. And that the MCGM has, over the last half century or more, regularly assessed the structure to every municipal tax and levy that is possible under the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888.

The judges have, however, granted them liberty to avail appropriate legal remedy as regards their disputes with or grievances against the housing society.