The Mumbai High Court has criticised the Maharashtra government, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) and other public authorities for remaining inactive while public land is encroached upon and a slum rehabilitation project in Chembur remains stalled after two decades.
A bench of Justice Girish Kulkarni and Justice Neela Gokhale made the observations while deciding petitions related to the redevelopment of 66,000 square metres of government-owned land in Chembur. The court said public authorities could not behave like passive landowners when public property was under encroachment or caught in prolonged litigation.
The court directed the state government and other authorities to accept responsibility for protecting encroached public land and advancing its redevelopment in the public interest. It also criticised authorities for allowing large parcels of public land in Mumbai and surrounding areas, which may need to be preserved for important public purposes, to remain vulnerable to encroachment.
According to the report, the court said the state government and planning authorities appeared to be adopting a bystander’s role after encroachments had taken place. It also criticised the alleged allowance of commercial transactions on government land. The bench said public authorities must take ownership of the issue and ensure that redevelopment serves the public interest rather than depending on the preferences or commercial negotiations of private developers.
Redevelopment efforts for the Chembur site began in August 2006. However, nearly 20 years later, not a single brick has been laid, the court noted. The project has been held up by continuing legal disputes involving several slum-dweller societies and competing private developers.
The court said the prolonged impasse had effectively defeated the legal purpose of slum rehabilitation. The case highlights the administrative difficulty of moving redevelopment projects forward when public land ownership, encroachments, resident societies, private developers and competing claims become entangled in litigation.
The ruling places responsibility on the state, the SRA and other relevant public authorities to take a more active role in protecting the land and pursuing redevelopment for public welfare. The next steps will depend on how the authorities respond to the court’s observations and advance the long-delayed Chembur project.
