An 81-year-old Mira Road resident has regained control of a disputed plot in Bhayander after BJP MLA Narendra Mehta surrendered possession of the land, withdrew construction permission and dropped a police complaint against him, following a meeting convened by Maharashtra government officials.
The development took place during a meeting at Mantralaya on Tuesday attended by Asgar Ali Vora, Mehta, Mira-Bhayander municipal commissioner Radha Binod Sharma and town planner Purushottam Shinde. The meeting was convened by Shrikar Pardeshi, principal secretary to the chief minister, after Vora raised the dispute during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 8.
Vora, who studied with Modi at B N School in Vadnagar, Gujarat, has claimed that he purchased around 2,810 square metres of land at Navghar in Bhayander East in 1989. According to his complaint, the plot was taken over in 2011 by Swayam Builders and Mehta’s Seven Eleven Constructions. He said he had pursued the matter with government authorities for nearly 15 years.
At the Mantralaya meeting, Mehta submitted a letter to the town planning department stating that he was giving up possession of the disputed land and surrendering the construction permission granted for the plot. In the letter, he said the land had been purchased from Mervyn Fernandes in 2019.
The dispute also involved a police complaint filed earlier by Mehta against Vora. In a separate letter addressed to the police commissioner, the MLA said he was withdrawing that complaint because the two sides had reached a settlement.
The immediate outcome places the town planning department and the Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation at the centre of the next administrative steps. The surrender of construction permission means the permission previously granted for the site will no longer be pursued by Mehta, while the surrender of possession records the position stated by him during the government-convened meeting.
The case highlights how private land disputes in expanding urban areas can move across several institutional channels, including municipal town planning, police proceedings and state-level administrative intervention. It also shows the importance of establishing the chain of title and the legal status of development permissions when ownership claims and construction activity overlap.
The development followed Times of India reporting on September 13 about Vora’s complaint and his meeting with the prime minister. The source report said government authorities took up the matter after that meeting. The next steps will depend on the implementation of the letters submitted to the town planning department and police authorities and on the records maintained by the municipal corporation.
