Mumbai with scarce lands can’t continue to have slums and no open spaces, says Bombay HC

“The Government should have a vision… a city like Mumbai is an international city and financial capital of the country… we should absolutely have a slum-free city. The Slum Areas Act, 1971 will help the vision,” the bench said.

It added that the authorities should cater to future generations so that 50-70 years later, the “concrete jungles” consisting of only residential skyscrapers do not remain without adequate large open spaces to play sports and other recreational activities. It would become impossible even for the “mighty” state government or BMC to remove encroachments, the bench said.

The court also expressed concern over the “plight of slum dwellers” and  remarked why there cannot be a bidding and auction process to appoint developers for slum rehabilitation (SR) projects instead of leaving it to the discretion of slum leaders and developers. It added, “the slum dwellers become victims and end up with pittance”.

The court said that in such situations, the authorities become “silent spectators” and the issues remain pending before the Apex Grievance Redressal Committees (AGRC) and HC for several years.

A special bench of Justices Girish S Kulkarni and Somsekhar Sundaresan was hearing a suo motu plea initiated after July 30 Supreme Court direction to HC to consider ordering performance audit of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 and to review working of the said law and identify the causes of problems faced in its implementation.

The bench said the selection of developers is a “real and important concern” and there should not be delays after developers are appointed in the project.

“There has to be robust development with buildings of highest quality… we should not have a situation that in 10 years we will have to demolish SR buildings and hundreds being sent to transit again. In some matters we have been seeing this as they are dilapidated. We are pained by this… it will cause a major impact on the future of the city. There has to be decent living and proper abode (in SR projects),” Justice Kulkarni orally remarked.

The HC further raised concerns over the developers not providing transit accommodation and rents to eligible slum dwellers for years and said the same directly affected the right to life of eligible slum dwellers.

It said there was no need for developers to be “greedy” to earn more than decent profits in SR schemes, they need to be “impeccable and honest” to ensure “speedy and qualitative redevelopment”.

– Advocate General Birendra Saraf submitted that the state government last year imposed a condition for developers to deposit 2-year rental amount as corpus with the SRA and as a result the authority recovered nearly Rs 700 crore from several developers. He added that the state is considering a mechanism to prevent the selling of SR tenements to third parties

Justice Kulkarni referred to February, 2022 judgement in Jilani building case that commented on the need of slum-free city and suggested rental housing or tenement policy for the “perennially required” migrants. The judge said that some states have taken a cue from the said verdict and the Maharashtra government may also consider the same.

“In London and other countries, they do not permit even a brick to be laid on open spaces/govt lands. This has to be an absolute intention and only then we will survive… sustainable development is important. You cannot have only concrete jungles and have no large open spaces…,” Justice Kulkarni said.

The court directed the state, SRA and representatives of developers and slum dwellers to file their affidavits with propositions. Further hearing has been posted to September 20.