Give us time till June 3, residents urge BMC

The civic body, to avoid the drama of residents unwilling to vacate the illegal flats, as seen in the previous two attempts — in May and November, 2013  — to start the demolition, has set up a separate counter in the G-South ward office which is to remain open from May 29-June 2. This is to allow residents to peacefully hand over the keys to their flats.

“Till Sunday evening, we have not received a single key from the list of 89 flat owners. Our desk remained open even on the weekend from 10.30 am to 5.30 pm,” said A D Kusale, assistant engineer (maintenance) in-charge of the counter at the G-South ward office.

Recently, the CCRWA engaged a Delhi-based law firm to take up the matter once again in a fresh petition before the apex court, claiming to have found new evidence in favour of saving their homes. The court has scheduled a hearing on June 3.

The residents and their advocate have now written to municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte and the deputy chief engineer of the Development Plan department, requesting the counter stay open till the date of the hearing.

“We have asked the municipal commissioner to keep the counter open for one more day. The BMC has said we have time till the evening of June 2 to hand over keys, all we are asking is for the counter to remain open on June 3 till the Supreme Court hears our matter. We are waiting for the court’s verdict on our new petition and do not want to surrender the keys in the hope that we receive a judgement in our favour,” said Karan Sethia, resident of the compound and a member of the CCRWA core committee.

However, the civic body is unlikely to grant the extension.“We cannot extend the deadline of June 2. We have given the residents an extra day as June 1 was a Sunday. We will take a call on Monday whether or not we should file a contempt petition against the residents, but we will file a report to the Supreme Court stating the residents’ refusal to comply with our procedures for vacating the flats,” additional municipal commissioner Mohan Adtani had said on Friday.

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