HC orders perjury action against trustees, imposes ₹2.5 lakh for stalling Goregaon SRA project

The Bombay High Court has initiated perjury proceedings against four trustees for making false claims to delay a slum redevelopment project demolition.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has ordered perjury proceedings against four trustees of a Goregaon East religious trust for allegedly making false statements to stall the demolition of seven structures in a slum redevelopment project. The court said the petitioners had misused provisions of the Slum Redevelopment Act to wrongfully claim rehabilitation benefits. The court observed, “ This extortion in the guise of being helpless slum dwellers must be curbed.”

HC orders perjury action against trustees, imposes ₹2.5 lakh for stalling Goregaon SRA project

Justice Kamal Khata also directed the trustees to pay ₹2.5 lakh to the Shree Nityanand Ashram old age home in Mira Road within four weeks, for “attempting to play a fraud on the court”.

The case involved Masjid and Madrasa Gausiya, a trust which approached the court seeking an urgent hearing, claiming that certain structures were being wrongfully demolished by concerned authorities. The trust argued that the residential and commercial properties were under Waqf and that it was entitled to a Permanent Alternative Accommodation Agreement (PAAA) under the redevelopment scheme.

However, the developer Indu Construction’s lawyer, Mayur Khandeparkar, called this a “classic case of extortion”.

He told the court that the trustees had tried to rename their trust and change its nature from a madarsa to a masjid in order to claim eligibility for PAAA. He said the developer was only permitted to enter into PAAAs with names listed in Annexure-II, and the trust’s name was not among them.

The court noted that the trustees had concealed an earlier order dated May 27, in which they had voluntarily agreed to vacate the premises.

Justice Khata said, “It is apparent that the petitioners have not only attempted to mislead the court but also suppressed material facts from their own counsel. Such litigants deserve to be non-suited at the very inception.”

Khandeparkar also pointed out that the trust’s own audit report for 2022–23 disproved its claim that the earlier Madrasa-E-Gausiya Committee had ceased to exist upon registration with the Waqf Board.

Out of 690 slum dwellers in the project, 383 had already moved to transit camps, and only one structure remains to be cleared.