BMC gets court rap

The Bombay high court reprimanded the civic body for allegedly allowing Shiv Sena corporator Shantu Bhosale of Goregaon to build a balewadi on an open plot reserved for a garden.

A division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice DG Karnik said, “Does the BMC have any authority to allow a balewadi to come up when any kind of construction is prohibited on such a plot? Why shouldn’t the money spent be recovered from the engineer, who allowed the corporator to build the structure, or the respondents themselves?

The court was hearing a petition filed by two social workers from Goregaon Anand Samant and Shirish Parambhumirashi. According to their petition, the reserved plot situated at Pandurang Wadi in Goregaon (East) comes under the P/South ward. As per the state government circular issued in 2009, the state has prohibited any kind of construction on open spaces. Thus the construction of a balweadi from the funds of the corporator is illegal and should be demolished.

Petitioners’ advocate Kunal Bhanage said, “It was illegal on Bhosale’s part to have the balewadi constructed at a cost of Rs4.99 lakh. We pray that he be restrained from using the corporators’ fund and legal action is taken against the municipal commissioner and civic officials for allowing this.”

The high court, however, had asked the BMC whether it had moved any proposal to the state for regularising the balewadi, reply to which was in the negative. Thus it also directed the petitioners to amend their petition and make state government as one of the parties and directed the state to file their reply.