HC asks it to give up 1/3rd of mill land each at Naigaum and Lower Parel for redevelopment. .
In a major setback to Bombay Dyeing, the Bombay High Court has asked the textile major to hand over one-third of its mill land each at Naigaum and Lower Parel to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada), respectively, for development of open spaces and low-income housing.
In April 2010, the Bombay high court had stayed the stop-work notice issued by the BMC to Bombay Dyeing for redeveloping mill land. A division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice Roshan Dalvi vacated the stay and asked the textile major to hand over the land to the BMC.
The textile company had approached the high court after the BMC issued a stop-work notice on March 26, 2010. The notice was issued following a direction from the monitoring committee that oversees the redevelopment of mill lands in the city.
The committee, headed by justice (retd) BV Chavan, had directed the civic body to issue notices on the grounds that Bombay Dyeing had failed to hand over land to Mhada and the BMC for low-cost housing and recreational grounds respectively.
The committee had also observed that while there was no progress as far as housing and redevelopment of chawls was concerned, the permitted redevelopment construction by the company was going on and this appeared to be incongruous.
The committee also noted that the original redevelopment layout submitted by Bombay Dyeing was approved in 2005 itself. Five years have passed since then and the land is yet to be handed over, it added.
Navroz Seervai, counsel for Bombay Dyeing, contended that under the DC regulation, it would have to surrender land to Mhada and the corporation only on completion of 30% of the work in the layout.
The petitioner’s counsel pointed out that the DC regulations were proposed to be amended and till the amendment came into force, Bombay Dyeing did not need to surrender the lands.
GW Mattos, counsel for Mhada, had argued that a commitment was made by Bombay Dyeing to the monitoring committee which has powers of a civil court and can direct issuance of stop-work notice. He also pointed out that the company’s contention that Mhada’s share of land would be surrendered once the amended layout is approved is, in fact, incorrect.
The high court has stayed the order till June 31 to allow Bombay Dyeing to approach the Supreme Court.
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