Title: Chandralok People Welfare Association v. State of Maharashtra
Coram : Gs Patel & Kamal Khata, Jj
Dated : 18th October 2023
Introduction:
The Petitioner is a Welfare Association. It says or claims to have as its membership, seven persons who are in its Managing Committee and fully 103 persons who are or were monthly tenants of the Chandralok building at Sudhakar Dubey Compound. The Association is registered under the Maharashtra Public Trusts Act, 1950.
Facts:
The building was constructed in 1965. It outlived its life. It does not seem to have been subjected even to normal or routine repairs and certainly not to more intensive repairs as the passage of time may have required. By 2014, the building had deteriorated considerably. Then came to pass the usual process of obtaining structural audit reports of the construction. Ultimately these resulted in the second Respondent, the MCGM represented by Mr Waghmare categorizing the building in the C-1 category. This meant that it was dilapidated, dangerous, uninhabitable and required to be pulled down.
The building received notices inter alia under Section 353-B on 10th April 2019 and then a notice under Section 354 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 (“MMC Act”) on 24th June 2019 is not in dispute. The building was vacated on 16th July 2019 and was demolished. Respondent claims that this demolition is in violation of orders of the City Civil Court, particularly an order dated 11th July 2019.
Since July 2019 all 103 tenants are off-site, scattered across the city, their once tightly-knit community fractured. Since then, and this is the number of the complaint, they have seen no vestige or semblance of any proposal for reconstruction or redevelopment.
Court’s Judgement and Analysis:
The court on the basis of circumstances and because of finding no answer at all to either the Petition or even to queries of this Court in the Affidavit of Respondent, made the Rule partly absolute in terms of prayer clause (b) permitting the Petitioner Association to apply to the MCGM for permission for reconstruction of the demolished building. And regarding the question of transit accommodation or transit rent, court did not find a specific provision to that effect in the MMC Act. So the petitioner were directed towards Maharashtra Rent Control Act ,1999 to find a remedy.
Furthermore it was decided that subject to any orders in Rent Act proceedings, all tenants will continue as tenants in the reconstructed building. The mere pendency of a rent proceeding will not disentitle any tenant to possession of reconstructed premises. The association must make its own arrangements for financing the reconstruction. court have only affirmed their statutory right to reconstruction and the MCGM’s obligation to permit it without requiring the prior consent of Respondents.
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Written by- Sushant Kumar Sharma
