The Bombay high court will decide whether the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) can charge additional premium to developers while allowing use of fungible FSI and for deficiency of open space.
BMC asked to upload circulars immediately
A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice BP Colabawalla is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the arbitrary premium charged by the civic body saying that the altered building plan has created "deficiency in open space".
On Thursday, the high court (HC) has directed BMC to immediately upload circulars issued by the Building Proposal department on their website so that public will have an easy access. "The circulars should be displayed on the official website on the same day or at the most, on the following day," said the judges.
The Maharashtra government has also been directed to upload their circulars issuing directions to the BMC under the Mumbai Regional Town Planning Act, on the same day of issuance.
Petitioner challenges validity of MRTP Act section
One of the petitioners, Mayfair Housing Private Limited, has challenged the constitutional validity of section 22 (m) of the MRTP Act. The petition challenges the "arbitrary and discriminatory actions on the part of Respondents in changing premium with reference to basic Incentive FSI as against the Fungible FSI".
The petitioner is constructing a housing society at Bandra under the redevelopment plan.
According to the petition, they have already paid Rs2.71 crore as demanded by the BMC from time to time for "Open Space Deficiency (OSD)".
Despite this, they once again received notice on November 11, asking them to pay additional premium. Their advocates — Neil Mandevia and Nivit Srivastava — argued that the Development Control Regulations (DCR) spells out mandatory open space requirement. However, there is no provision which specifies method of computing OSD.
"The municipal commissioner issues circulars at his whims and keeps changing the formula for calculation of premium. And based on new formula a new notice
for demand is issued for a plan which was sanctioned earlier," argued Mandevia.
Was it an error in calculations?
Chief Justice asked the BMC counsel VA Thorat what prompted the civic body for issuing new notices. Thorat replied that there was error in calculations and hence a notice was issued following the correction.
Mandevia pointed out that the error in calculations was showing because the civic body keeps changing the formula itself.
HC notice to advocate general
The HC has issued notice to the advocate general. The HC has also asked the BMC and the state government to file their replies within three weeks.
HC has kept the petition for hearing next week.
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