HC junks Navi Mumbai bungalow owners’ plea against highrises in vicinity

MUMBAI: Finding no merit in the petition filed by 17 bungalow owners in Kharghar against a 2020-2021 housing scheme by the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited (Cidco) permitting the construction of highrises in their vicinity, the Bombay High Court recently held that they cannot claim any vested right to challenge a policy decision of Navi Mumbai’s planning authority

MUMBAI: Finding no merit in the petition filed by 17 bungalow owners in Kharghar against a 2020-2021 housing scheme by the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited (Cidco) permitting the construction of highrises in their vicinity, the Bombay High Court recently held that they cannot claim any vested right to challenge a policy decision of Navi Mumbai’s planning authority.

Urging the court to quash the Cidco’s 2020-2021 housing scheme on 14 plots in Sector 21 of Kharghar, the petitioners contended that, among other things, their ‘legitimate expectation’ that the entire layout would be of bungalow plots was breached by the 2020-2021 scheme and “such development would adversely affect the petitioners’ right to light and ventilation”.

The 17 petitioners had also acquired their bungalow plots on a 60-year-lease under two housing schemes by the Cidco in 2002-2003 and 2011-2012. While the Cidco had announced the scheme in 2020-2021 leasing 106 plots in New Panvel, Kharghar, Nerul, Airoli and Ghansoli in Navi Mumbai, the petitioners had objected to the implementation of the housing scheme in 14 plots in Kharghar’s sector 21.

The petitioners argued that that the 2020-2021 scheme was contrary to the schemes of 2002-2003 and 2011-2012, which were primarily for allotment of bungalow and semi-detached residential plots with no rise development. They alleged that Cidco was illegally allowing construction of multiple buildings on a single plot under the latest scheme and it was illegally allowing amalgamation of plots which were previously demarcated as detached or semi-detached bungalow plots. “As a result of the amalgamation and permission to construct high-rise buildings, the petitioners’ enjoyment of light and air is affected,” they stated.

Justices M S Karnik and S M Modak, however, said that they found substance in the arguments of advocate general Milind Sathe who told the court that Cidco’s previous housing scheme were governed by the erstwhile Development Control Regulations, 1975 but the the subsequent schemes would be governed by Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations (UDCPR).

The judges observed that the 2020-2021 scheme was not connected to the previous housing schemes of Cidco. “In view of the enhanced development potential and the permission for amalgamation of plots under the regulations, and having regard to the growth in population and increased demand for housing in Navi Mumbai over the past two decades, the scheme permits the construction of multi-storeyed residential buildings on the said plots,” they said. They added that they found nothing erroneous in the Cidco’s stand that after December 2020 factors like amalgamation of plots, maximum permissible FSI, maximum permissible height depending upon the road width of the abutting road, are now governed by UDCPR.

The judges said that while petitioners were allottees in the previous schemes of the Cidco, their rights were limited to the lease agreements in their favour. “The petitioners do not claim any right in respect of unsold or subsequently disposed plots belonging to Cidco,” the court said in an order passed earlier this month.

While the first housing scheme permitted bungalows of ground-plus-two storey, the second scheme permitted ground-plus-three structures and the latest scheme of 2020-2021 permitted construction of buildings up to seven floors.

The petitioners contended that the manner in which Navi Mumbai City was earlier planned was “being completely given a go-bye by such haphazard commercial schemes, permitting skyscrapers in a bungalow/plot layout which is not suitable for skyscrapers”. Sathe, however, told the court that while announcing its erstwhile housing schemes, Cidco did not make any representation or commitment that the use or development typology of the remaining or unsold plots would continue to be the same in future schemes as well.