Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Sept 20: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday ordered Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to demolish the illegal portions of a bungalow belonging to the company owned by the family of Union minister Narayan Rane within 2 weeks.
In addition, a bench of Justices RD Dhanuka and Kamal Khata ordered the company to pay costs of 10 lakh to the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority (MALSA) and dismissed the appeal asking the BMC to give the second regularisation application its due.
While prohibiting BMC from reviewing a regularisation application submitted by Rane for a second time, the Bench offered additional important remarks.
In its petition, Kaalkaa Real Estates Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Rane’s family business, asked the BMC for instructions on how to handle a new application for regularisation of a house in Mumbai’s Juhu neighbourhood.
According to Section 342 of the MMC Act, which requires alerting the Commissioner before making any alterations or additions to an existing building, the company submitted a new regularisation application to BMC.
In March, BMC sent Kaalkaa a letter demanding that it stop any allegedly illegal construction on the property within 15 days, failing which the corporation will demolish the affected areas and penalise the owners/occupiers for the costs.
This notice was contested in front of the High Court, and as a result, the building was spared from demolition until June 24 while BMC heard Rane’s regularisation application.
The BMC then denied the request for regularisation on June 3. Rane petitioned the High Court for immediate redress because the High Court’s protection was about to expire.
Rane’s plea to overturn the rejection ruling was denied by the High Court on June 23. In response, Rane submitted a second application to the BMC and requested guidance from the High Court.
The Court had questioned whether a second similar application under the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act would even be maintainable when the plea in respect to the second application came up for consideration.
The BMC stated that the Rane family-owned business might submit a second application for regularisation, which the civic body would then assess in accordance with the terms of the relevant acts and regulations.
This second regularisation application cannot be taken into consideration, the Bench said today.
