After hearing 10 petitions seeking to legalise illegal structures in various parts of the city, the Bombay high court last week ruled that regularization should not be granted as a matter of course.
“Regularization of unauthorised constructions will have to be permitted on a case-to-case basis,” the court ruled.
“It cannot be said as a matter of general rule that unauthorised constructions must be regularised if the floor space index (FSI) is available or can be generated in the form of transfer of development rights (TDR) from other sources by the builder.”
A division bench of chief justice Swatanter Kumar and justice SC Dharmadhikari said in their 123-page order that the planning authority had to consider various factors such as infrastructure, congestion, water supply, and roads before regularising illegal constructions against payment of a penalty. “If there is an increasing pressure and burden on the
existing facilities and amenities then the whole system would collapse resulting in large-scale inconvenience.”
Although section 53(1) of the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act provides for regularisation of unauthorised structures, the court said that indiscriminate regularisation through TDR or FSI can have “disastrous consequences”.
The cases before the court pertained to regularisation of various structures in Bandra, Goregaon, Borivli, and Pydhonie apart from the top 17 floors of Gaurav Gagan, a 24-storeyed building in Kandivli (West).
While some had challenged the penalty amount levied by the corporation, others had sought regularisation of the mezzanine floors of the existing structures.
Sudhir Khandwala, who bought flats in Gaurav Gagan, had urged the court to restrain the BMC from demolishing the building and allowing its regularisation.
Khandwala’s contention was that the buyers would be the sufferers because they would have spent all their savings to buy flats.
The court, however, said, “Before they (authorities) take any decision (about regularisation) they must not only consider the alleged hardship to individual flat purchasers but also the interest of those living in the neighbourhood and the public at large.”
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