HC pulls up SRA, restrains developer from unlawfully taking over private land

Calling the motive of the developer to be “sinister”, the court held that the developer seemed to be using “back-door methods to subvert and breach the petitioner’s right”

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday slammed the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) and a private developer for illegally trying to assert their right on the land of a senior citizen in Kanjur Marg. The court criticised the SRA for linking the old man’s land to a neighbouring slum project and restrained the authorities from interfering with the man’s property.

Gavel and law books (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The man, Gerald Shivanand Warty, had constructed 13 shops and 22 living quarters on his land in 1969 and had been living peacefully at Kanjur for over 50 years. However, in August 2023, a developer, Shraddha Landmarks, who was appointed in charge of a SRA scheme on the neighboring land, demolished two of Warty’s shops and dense the area claiming it was part of a proposed Development Plan (DP) road.

When Warty tried asserting that the slum scheme was not connected to his land and was actually part of the adjoining land, the municipal corporation and the SRA denied that they had ever demolished parts of his land. Warty finally approached the Bombay High Court in 2024 and his representatives told the court that the land for the DP road had not been legally acquired, and therefore no authority can claim it. Warty’s lawyers told the court that the SRA and the builder had acted in a highhanded manner and violated Warty’s constitutional right.

A division bench of justices GS Kulkarni and Manjusha Deshpande noted that the SRA had only issued a letter of intent to the developer regarding the adjoining land, and no formal procedure had been followed to acquire Warty’s land. Calling the motive of the developer to be “sinister”, the court held that the developer seemed to be using “back-door methods to subvert and breach the petitioner’s right”.

The bench said that the developer had put up tin sheets in Warty’s land and at the same time denied having demolished parts of his land, even though there was no one else who could have been held responsible for illegally removing the structures.

The court also raised concerns over the SRA’s conduct and said, “It appears to be some mischief also being played by the SRA officials.” The court added that this was a case where the petitioner’s “valuable rights”, which had been “threatened by the developer and the SRA”, had to be protected.

The court remarked that the SRA had “fully cooperated” with the builder and allowed Warty’s land to be included in the scheme without any legal permit to do so. The bench said the SRA had “tacitly aided the unlawful design of the developer to use his land as commercial space”. The bench restrained the developer and the SRA from interfering with Warty’s land and ordered them to remove the fencing they had set up around his shops.