In a setback for the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road Project,the Bombay High Court on Tuesday passed an interim order restraining the state government and Mumbai Metropolitan and Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) from acquiring two housing societies and evicting the residents. The state government had decided to acquire the housing societies after the MMRDA,the executing authority of the project,and the residents of the societies failed to reach a consensus on rehabilitation of the residents on an ownership basis. According to petitioners lawyer Uday Warunjikar,the division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice S C Dharmadhikari on Tuesday directed the authorities not to evict the petitioners and asked to to provide the details of rehabilitation. The court will hear the case in two weeks. The Netaji Nagar Co-operative Housing Society,a group of five societies,had moved court after it came to light that two of their housing societies are going to be affected as it came in the way of the link road project funded by the World Bank. The residents then made representations to the development authority following which they were informed that members of the affected societies will be rehabilitated by providing them with 225 sq. ft carpet area on ownership basis. Petitioners,however,feel that this is in violation of article 14 of the constitution as the area they will be getting is similar to those related to slum rehabilitation policy. The authority have provided discriminatory treatment.as they (MMRDA) are providing area measuring 225 sq. ft as alternate permanent accommodation to encroachers and slum dwellers, petition states. The residents of the societies are standing on much better footing as compared to those persons,petition says. The government later decided that the petitioners would be given 360 sq. ft tenement. To support their contentions,the petitioners have cited an earlier high court order inwhich the authorities had provided Navin Tilak Nagar Housing Societies Ltd 485 sq. ft carpet area.
