Mumbai: The Bombay high court has invalidated a notice the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) had issued for the cancellation of 517 slum projects that had been left unfinished since 2014.
The notice that was issued was, according to the high court’s bench of Justices G.S. Patel and S.G. Dige, “entirely outside the frame of the law and not issued in accordance with the law.”
According to the order, a specific hearing must be held for each case, not just a general notice. Following a statement made in the state assembly by the then-housing minister Jitendra Awhad, SRA CEO Satish Lokhande issued the notice in April 2022.
“The high court has not restricted the powers of the SRA while quashing this notice. We will now be issuing individual notices. Only those cases where the developer is genuine will be allowed to continue with the scheme. The criteria include the developers who are willing to deposit rent for 11 months and demonstrate financial capability”, said Lokhande.
“The proviso is clear. It means that every defaulting owner/developer must be given notice and afforded a hearing. No rejection of a scheme can proceed, or appointment of another developer or re-development by the SRA can proceed without compliance with the proviso”, said the bench referring to the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance, and Redevelopment) Act, 1971.
According to the law, the SRA CEO was required to move forward with each project individually, pointing out any deficiencies, the court claimed. “It is not possible for the CEO to group together as many as 500 projects, claim that they are all behind schedule, and move forward under the presumption that every delay is the fault of the developers,” the statement reads.
The document continued, “Therefore to demand compliance with undefined requirements in an undefined time, and in default of such generalities that are impossible to meet, threaten the recording of a rejection of the proposed slum schemes.”
The bench stated, “It is well settled that an authority must act in that manner or not at all where a statute requires it to do so.”
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