Bijlee building residents get rude shock

Sangram Singh Patil, 65, had been a resident of Bijlee Cooperative Housing Society since 1981. He had purchased a 650 sq ft 2BHK flat in the society from J D Rawal, who was also a native of Dhule district like Patil. 

The society building was built in 1965 and hence had become dilapidated. Patil expected a bigger share in the future redevelopment project.

But he was shocked when he found his name was missing in the voters’ list that would elect the governing body of the cooperative society and therefore control who would get redevelopment contract and what size flats they would get. The administrator, who was appointed after a prolonged dispute between the members of the society and after pursuance of the then legislator Jaykumar Rawal, included only 47 names from 1965 when the society was formed.

“I purchased the flat from the Rawals in 1981. I have all the relevant documents- a share certificate, society maintenance bills, water bills. Even the eviction notice by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation issued after the building was declared as dilapidated is in my name. And yet the administrator has omitted my name. I find the Rawals’ names in the list even though they had sold off their flats,” Patil said.

Patil is not the only member whose name was omitted from the list. “My client Purnima Rajput, who had bought her flat in the 80s’, also found that she was not on the voters’ list,” said Advocate Xavier Fernando who is fighting on behalf of Rajput and a few others. “It is strange that the list includes those who had sold off their flats, and is devoid of those who are current residents,” he said.

Some of the residents have claimed that the administrator Devidas Goswami, appointed in 2013 after Rawal pursued in the state cooperatives department, had made decisions that were favouring the Rawals. Members point that both Rawal and Goswami hail from Sindkheda and are close to each other. “Our building was not in such bad shape and yet it was declared as dilapidated so that it could go for redevelopment,” they allege.

The 4020 sq mtr plot in Bandra Kurla Complex, with a floor space index of 2, will fetch upto Rs 500 crore, experts claim. It is this windfall that the Rawals stand to gain and hence the exclusion of those members who could oppose them, members claim. “Most of those in the list declared by Goswami are family members or relatives of the Rawals. They are not going to oppose any decision made by Rawal,”said Fernando. Elections, with the new list, were held on January 6, 2018 and Ramsingh Shankarsingh Patil, a close aide of the Rawals and J J Rawal, became a member in the new committee.

Goswami, for his part, defended his decision of declaring voters eligible from the 1965 list. “HC did not tell me which members list should be considered—the one from 1965 or the updated one. I disqualified six members because I could not trust their share certificates, various BMC bills and general body resolutions. I had asked them chain documents, which they could not produce. They can go to court against my decision,” Goswami said.