Bombay High Court upholds lease termination of 782 acres of salt pan land in Mumbai

The order paves the way for the widening of the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, as the BMC earlier could not earlier take possession of land for the project

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday upheld the lease termination of 782 acres of salt pan land spread across Mulund, Bhandup and Kanjur Marg and directed the leaseholder to hand over the land to the salt commissioner.

Mumbai, India, June11, 2015 : A Salt Worker daily chores (hard Working) at Salt pan land at mithagar Mulund (East) India, June 11, 2015 (Photo By Praful Gangurde) (Praful Gangurde)

The order paves the way for the widening of the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) earlier could not take possession of the requisite land because of an interim order in the proceedings.

A single judge bench of Justice Sandeep Marne dismissed a suit filed by Dadar resident Vikas Walawalkar, a sub-lessee of the salt pan land, seeking a declaration that he was entitled to a lease renewal for another 99 years. He had filed the suit in 2005, shortly after the deputy salt commissioner terminated his lease for not using the entire land for salt manufacturing.

The court said that in a city like Mumbai, where land prices are among the highest in the country, permitting the use of 782 acres of land for salt manufacturing cannot be confused with creating any vested right in the land for the lessee.

Apart from challenging the lease termination, the sub-lessee had sought a declaration that he was entitled to lease renewal after it expired in October 2016, claiming that he could not manufacture salt on a large chunk of the land because of a situation beyond his control. He claimed that due to a proliferation of slums, hutments and factories beyond the salt pans’ western boundary, sewage water and industrial effluents were discharged into the land.

This reasoning, however, did not impress upon the high court, as it failed to influence the deputy salt commissioner.