Bombay HC questions SRA, developer over relocation of animal stables for commercial office spaces

The bench was hearing pleas by stable owners falling under the slum redevelopment in the Pahadi area in suburban Goregaon. The petitioners raised apprehension over the developer’s contention that if and when found eligible for the SR scheme, they will be entitled to rehabilitation in the rehab buildings meant for commercial premises.

“This is what troubles us. If the stables are actually being used as such, as stables, we cannot see how it is conceivably possible to push these people and their animals into a commercial space that would ordinarily be meant for an office, a grocery shop etc. This is a complex problem. It is a human displacement problem. It is an urban planning problem. And it is not a new problem,” the bench of Justice Gautam S Patel and Kamal R Khata observed.

It went on to add, “For the last several decades, civil planning has required the movement northward and ultimately beyond municipal limits of various animal holding commercial enterprises such as panjrapoles, cattle sheds, stables, etc. There are zoning issues involved in this as well.”

The bench noted that while SRA might not be concerned about wider civil planning, the state government and BMC were.

“We are not questioning the policy for relocation of stables. What we are questioning is whether in the guise of slum redevelopment, active and operational stables with animals can simply be rolled over by the juggernaut of slum redevelopment and people can be told that it does not matter what happens to their animals, but they must take up some commercial space. That seems to us inequitable, unthinkable and hardly credible as a statutory objective.”

The petitioners claimed they have been at the said site for a long time and that the lands on which their stables stand are not part of the slum scheme being undertaken by developer ABC Amalgamated Building Corporation. However, the developer contested the same.

The bench left it to the SRA to ascertain and inform whether the said land parcels are or are not part of the SR scheme and if they were included in Letter of Intent (LOI) as per the authority’s records.