NTC mill buyers can build pending final order: SC

The Supreme Court in an interim order today allowed private property developers, who had bought National Textile Corporation (NTC) mills in ...

The Supreme Court in an interim order today allowed private property developers, who had bought National Textile Corporation (NTC) mills in Mumbai, to go ahead with construction activity.

A bench, comprising Justice S B Sinha and Justice P P Naolekar, said the order was subject to the outcome of the appeals filed by the developers and NTC. The interim relief came on five mills of NTC—Bombay Textiles Mills, Elphinstone Mills, Jupiter Mills, Kohinoor Mills and Apollo Mills—which were sold to private property developers through auctions. After this order, the bench reserved its verdict against the Bombay High Court judgment holding that the sale of surplus lands by NTC were contrary to the BIFR scheme and apex court orders.

During the pendency of the appeals, the apex court had allowed the NTC mills and developers of the plots to approach the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other authorities for clearance of their developmental plans. The High Court had also held that all construction carried out by various developers was clearly in violation of government notification of July 7, 2004, as admittedly none of them have obtained clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forests. Bombay Environmental Action Group, an NGO, had filed a PIL alleging that surplus lands were sold in violation of rules.

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Besides NTC, the Apollo Textile Mills, Mumbai Textile Mills, Elphinstone Mills, Kohinoor Mill No 3 and Jupiter Mills, Bombay Dyeing and several others have challenged the High Court judgment.

The NGO had said that NTC had 25 textile mills spread over 285 acres in prime locations of the city, estimated to be worth over Rs 5,000 crore. Of these, surplus land of five mills were sold in violation of Development Control (DC) rules.

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