‘Centre not interested in pursuing it’: Bombay HC registry rejects plea against 2018 order declaring saltpans state property

Based on the 2018 order, the Mumbai suburban district collector under the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had on October 1, 2020, decided to transfer the 102-acre Kanjurmarg salt pan land to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for the Metro car shed project.

The central government had, in a separate writ plea, challenged the October 1, 2020 order and had opposed the said transfer on the ground that all salt pans belonged to it. The said petition was disposed of in August 2020.

In 2020, the then Uddhav Thackeray-led government had scrapped the 2019 decision of the previous Devendra Fadnavis-led government to construct a Metro car shed at Aarey Milk Colony. The Thackeray government had sought Kanjurmarg land for the car shed and an interchange station for Metro lines 3 (Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ), Metro line 4 (Kasarwadavali-Wadala) and Metro Line 6 (Lokhandwala-Vikhroli).

However, in a setback to the MVA government, the high court bench led by then Chief Justice Dipankar Datta (now Supreme Court judge) on December 16, 2020, stayed the October 1, 2020, land transfer order to build a Metro car shed. The court was to decide whether the state or the Centre owned the land.

On March 7, 2022, when the MVA government was still in power, in another instance of Centre-state conflict on the issue, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) wrote to the Maharashtra chief secretary to reconsider the decision to shift the project to Kanjurmarg. The MoHUA had said that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), which was assisting the Mumbai Metropolitan Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC) in the Metro line 3 Colaba-Bandra-Seepz, cited long-term operational and maintenance difficulties in shifting the car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg.

On April 7, 2022, the high court had said the conflict between the Centre and state government can be resolved by forgetting past differences, considering that “escalating costs” put a burden on “public money”.

The matter was adjourned to June 10, 2022. In June that year, the Shiv Sena split into two factions, Thackeray resigned as CM and a government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was formed in the state.

On August 30, 2022, the state government told the high court that it had withdrawn the collector’s October 1, 2020 order after which the court had disposed of the Centre’s plea challenging the same, observing that “nothing survives in the writ petition for decision”.

On January 17, 2024, another plea by the Centre challenging the then revenue minister’s decision that declared the salt pan lands as state property was listed before Sachin B. Bhansali, prothonotary and senior master (head of administrative division) of the Bombay High Court for ‘rejection’.

Bhansali noted that the petitioner central government “till date had not made a single attempt to remove office objections to get the petition numbered since the scrutiny officer had raised objections on October 20, 2020”.

Citing high court rules pertaining to the rejection of the petition, the prothonotary stated in the order, “The present Writ Petition is of the year 2020 and is still pending at the stage of removal of office objections. It seems that the Petitioner is not interested in pursuing the present Petition. Hence, the present Petition is rejected.”