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Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai v. Panna Mahesh Chandra Dave

Special Leave Petition (Civil) · 2020 INSC 117Decided 31 Jan 2020
Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 18065 of 2018
Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice Vineet Saran · Justice V. Ramasubramanian

Background

The Mumbai Municipal Corporation demolished eleven superstructures (shops/tenements) on a plot in Dahisar to widen a road, in what the Bombay High Court found was a "high-handed" manner without following due process, forcibly evicting the occupants. The High Court granted the landowner's family the right to apply for Transferable Development Rights (TDR) compensation and directed the Corporation to allot free alternative tenements of equal size to the displaced tenants. The Municipal Corporation challenged this common order through twelve separate special leave petitions, even though it had already conceded before the High Court that several of the claimants were entitled to relief.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court noted that the Corporation had already disposed of its objections to four tenants' claims in an earlier order (05.12.2018) after conceding their eligibility, and that it had further conceded eligibility for three more tenants in response to a fact-finding report from the Bombay High Court's Legal Services Committee, leaving only four tenants genuinely in dispute. On examining the record, the Court found that the High Court's factual findings, that the structures existed before 1961 and that the Corporation had acted high-handedly, were not perverse and could not be disturbed in a special leave petition. The Court held there were no grounds to interfere with the High Court's judgment and dismissed all the special leave petitions, including the lead petition concerning the landowner's TDR claim, with no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

A municipal authority that demolishes structures without following due process can be directed to compensate or rehouse the displaced occupants, and the Supreme Court will not disturb a High Court's factual findings of high-handed action unless they are shown to be perverse.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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