The society will be liable to remove the towers or else Mhada will and recover expenses from the society.
The Bombay High Court has directed the Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority (MHADA) to remove within two weeks the cell phone towers installed atop the terrace and the transformers on the ground floor of a Sion housing society by a private mobile service provider.
Division bench of Justice PB Majmudar and justice RM Sawant took on record the affidavit of the executive engineer of Mhada, Dilip Garje, where he has stated that “within two weeks from Wednesday the society or the mobile company will be liable to remove the towers or else MHADA would remove them and recover the expenses from the society.”
Advocate GW Mattos, appearing for MHADA, said: “The cell towers were erected by the company without proper permissions from the authority. The BMC also had not granted them NOC to erect the towers. Thus, the company and the society cannot claim any equity and make plea for compliance of principles of natural justice.”
Pradeep Shinde, a resident of the Mhada building at Sardar Nagar in Sion Koliwada, had on August 5, 2008 lodged his complaint with MHADA about the towers. The towers were above the bedroom of his house and this lead to leakages and also apparently caused health problems for his family members.
When MHADA’s stop work notice to the society did not work, Shinde complained again and MHADA on September 18, 2008 sent a notice to the society.
On May 6, 2009, the society made an ex-post facto application for grant of permission for erecting mobile towers. On August 13, 2009, former MHADA executive engineer informed the company that the society’s proposal was acceptable and called to make a payment of Rs3,50,000. Mhada then granted no-objection certificate, subject to permission from BMC.
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