Clarify stand on Pratibha razing in a week: HC

The Bombay high court on Friday offered residents of the Saidale Cooperative Society, or the erstwhile Pratibha Society in south Mumbai that was the first to be embroiled in a multi-crore-rupee floor space index (FSI) scam, a ray of rope of getting their building reconstructed when it pulled up the state government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for delaying their decision to demolish the structure to make way for a new one.
It has given the state and the BMC a week to make clear their stand on the demolition plan.

The building, which was built in 1979, shot to infamy when it was found that its authorities had inflated its 7,957sqm-plot area to 9,282sqm on paper in order to get extra FSI to build an additional eight floors to the 24 planned. Much furore and a court order later, the BMC pulled down the eight illegal floors.

Flat owners, however, want the entire building to be razed and rebuilt to accommodate even those whose apartments were among the eight that were demolished.

While hearing a writ petition filed on behalf of the 35 members of the cooperative society charging the state government, the assistant commissioner of police of the anti-corruption bureau (ACB), the municipal commissioner and the chief engineer of the structure with failing to cooperate over the plan to demolish the building so as to build another, justices SA Bobade and RG Ketkar on Friday pulled up the BMC for its reluctance and consequent delay in recording videos and taking photographs of the structure. 

Advocates Shailesh Naidu and Kumar Biswas, who represented the petitioners, asked the court to issue a writ of certiorari or any appropriate writ, order or direction to the civic body to grant its approval to demolish the old structure in a time-bound manner.

They also sought that the court direct the ACB, which had investigated the scam, to deliver the original files and documents in its possession. Besides, the petitioners expressed the need to videograph and photograph the existing structure to facilitate demolition.

The ACB’s investigation had established the modus operandi used by promoters Shyam and Shrichand Bajaj in connivance with PD Hawal and RR Sharma of the land revenue department to illegally grab extra FSI for the tower. A special anti-corruption court had convicted five persons in the case in April 1996. While sentencing architect BK Gupta, building secretary AK Makhija and promoter Shyam Bajaj, along with Hawal and Sharma, to three years of imprisonment, judge AB Poddar then slapped a fine of Rs1.4 lakh on each.