Slugging it out over Rent Act

“The landlords in the city have enough money to purchase the state government. But lakhs of tenants cannot be taken for granted by the landlord. We shall agitate and make a new Mumbai on our own might,” he declared even as he alleged that the state government had a hidden agenda of turning Mumbai into a commercial capital by pushing out residents from the island city.

A group of non-governmental organisations met at the Max Mueller Bhavan for a two-day seminar to discuss the implicationsof housing and displacement, in the light of the Supreme Court judgement directing the state government to amend the standard rent. It is estimated that the city has 19,600 cessed buildings. Two thirds of these are single tenement chawls within the island city whose tenants might find it difficult to pay any increase in the rent, which might in the end lead to large scale evictions, fear activists.

“What we want to do is have a public debate and may be at the end of this seminar, put up a paper on the formula that can be discussed by both the landlords and tenants,” said P K Das, architect and joint convenor of the Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti, which is a part of the Manch.

For a better part of the seminar, the landlord was painted the villain. A member of the Krantikari Bhadekaru Sangh, Jogeshwari recounted how the landlord stopped the locals from undertaking any repairs in the houses. Anil Goenka, chairman of the Federation of Old Buildings’ Cooperative Housing Society, showed a bill where the landlordhad, apparently illegally, charged ground rent to the tenant. On his part, Pitti claimed an increase in the standard rent, while giving landlords the wherewithal to carry out much needed repairs to old buildings, would also create an atmosphere for a free availability of rentals.

But it was Shyam Diwan, counsel for the tenants, who attracted the loudest applause as he argued that the government failed to provide adequate reasons before the Supreme Court for freezing of the rents and that landlords had not “come with clean hands seeking justice from the SC”.

“There will be an increase in property taxes since the rateable values of property are dependent on the rents,” he said. He pointed out that the state government did not tell the SC that there was another case pending before a five-member bench on the acquisition of cessed properties under the MHADA Act. “Had it said so, a three-member bench would never think of pre-empting a five-member bench by giving a directive,” he maintained.

Speaking on the landlords’ complicity, Diwan said that as a class, the landlords had recouped all their investments and returns in the form of transfers of tenancy rights. He also mentioned that the landlords were still paying the same lease rents on their lands to the state government and other parties like the Bombay Port Trust, the Collector and the BMC.

It, however, took S S Tinaikar, former municipal commissioner to point out that a review on the rents was long overdue. He added that as far as providing housing for the poor classes was concerned, the state government could not shake off its responsibility in providing houses for them.

Tenants question CM’s promise

“It is a political stunt. How can the Chief Minister go against the orders of the SC judgement which explicitly states that the standard rent under the existing Act is to be modified?” asked Anil Goenka, chairman of the Federation of Old Buildings’ Cooperative Housing Society. While the activists agreed that there should be a reasonable increase in the standard rent, they added that the amount of increase should be resolved through discussion. P K Das, architect and joint convenor of the Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti, added that the increase in rent should be connected to the landlord’s responsibility in undertaking repairs and reconstructions of the premises.