BMC petition challenging stay on zoo’s eviction dismissed.
The modest marine zoo run by the Wildlife Wanderers Nature Foundation (WWNF) at Shivaji Park found an ally in the Bombay high court. On Tuesday, the court dismissed the BMC’s petition challenging the stay granted on the eviction of the marine zoo.
In April, DNA first reported the legal tussle between Dr Nandkumar Moghe, founder of the WWNF, who runs the 25-year-old marine zoo, and the civic body. The latter had asked the WWNF to vacate the 2,005 sq ft premises, allocated to it in 1986 for the “unique project” of breeding rare marine life and medicinal forests.
Reason: it came in the way of the corporation’s Rs80-crore project of building an Olympic-size swimming pool and a martyrs’ gallery on Veer Savarkar Marg near the Mayor’s bungalow. The eviction notice was issued to the WWNF on April 9, and it was given 72 hours to move out.
The BMC had emphasised that the land was required “in public interest” for the redevelopment of a swimming pool complex as reserved in the final development plan of that ward. It had also issued a notice to the WWNF, alleging it was trespassing on a civic property under section 341 of the BMC Act.
The high court, however, observed that both itself and the Supreme Court had earlier passed orders giving the WWNF “uninterrupted and peaceful” possession of the 2,005 sq mt property.
Moghe’s advocates, Jamshed Mistry and AP Mishra, told the court that earlier too it had held the marine zoo, home to over 250 rare species of fish and 23 types of aquatic plants, in larger public interest than a swimming pool.
The BMC lawyer contended that the property was in a dilapidated condition. Mistry argued that the sand and the dust from the swimming pool’s construction site adjacent to the zoo were worsening its condition.
“The court is the only hope for environmentalists,” Moghe told DNA. “Young children and educationists come to our zoo to learn about aquatic life. It is not difficult to say which one — a concrete structure or a conservation centre — is the greater public cause.”
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