‘This is your creation and appeasement’: Bombay HC pulls up BMC over Powai road encroachments, says cars move like snails

On Wednesday, the bench orally remarked that residents, including the BMC commissioner, might be forced to use bicycles or even horses for travel in the future because of road encroachments.

Advocate Dhruti Kapadia, appearing for BMC, said on Thursday that the civic body would remove the encroachments and asked for a court order for additional police protection to take action. Kapadia also said the deputy municipal commissioner would file an affidavit with a time-bound plan to remove the encroachments expeditiously.

“Is this how you guard the property? Anybody can come and put a hutment and start staying on the main road… Why don’t you tell us that you don’t have the will, desire, means, and courage to remove encroachment on the roads? So, we will at least record that so that Mumbai can be surrendered to encroachers. Should we say you are powerless? You are surrendering Mumbai to all these encroachers,” Justice Ghuge said.

The bench said that BMC officials should also remove a mobile toilet parked in the area for a long time.
“We will blast them (officers) if they tell us lies, and we will direct their demotion. We will transfer them somewhere to a place where they will not get water… This (encroachment) is your (BMC’s) creation and appeasement. By this, you are encouraging encroachers,” the judge remarked.

‘This is like that Tom and Jerry show’

After the BMC counsel said the encroachers were earlier removed from another area (Jai Bheem Nagar) after court orders.

“Before we really get angry with the corporation, we will put it in a lighter way. This is like that Tom and Jerry show. You remove somebody from here, Jerry runs there,” the judge remarked.

The court further said it had perused last year’s orders, including those refusing to stay the demolition of slums of Jai Bheem Nagar in Powai, adding that it would have to pass stricter orders in the present matter.

Justice Ghuge went on to remark, “We are more concerned about the hurt to the civilian people who are residents of Mumbai, who now cannot drive their cars on the road. Everywhere there is a jam… Every day in the evening, we have to wait there at one small patch on P D’Mello Road (in South Mumbai) for almost 30-45 minutes. Cars move like snails and a person can walk faster. Three-lane roads have shrunk to two lanes and so on…”

“We are all humans, and we have a limited stay on this earth and not immortals… The date of exit is also marked. In that duration, you have to struggle and endure to keep the city in such a good condition that your next generation will feel they have inherited something good. But your next generation is going to say that our earlier generation was callous and careless and they gave us encroachment,” the judge said.