Bombay High Court raps MHADA for not penalising errant developers

The Bombay High Court gave the state government two weeks’ time to enumerate steps it has taken against MHADA officials who may have connived with private developers to not recover the surplus area which it is supposed to get from the developers of Cess buildings in the city. “Eight months ago, this court had passed an order. You (the state government) hasn’t done anything. Why so much protection to these offenders?” a division bench of justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre said.

As per the rules, MHADA is supposed to get a certain percentage of saleable area from developers of Cess buildings. Advocate Chaitanya Pendse argued before the court that MHADA is supposed to create a house bank, but because they aren’t recovering the surplus area, private developers are benefiting. “And even the ACB is not acting on it, since it’s waiting for sanctions from the authorised departments,” he said.

Public prosecutor Jayesh Yagnik then said, “It’s not that nothing has been done. The bureau is waiting for sanctions to go ahead with the inquiry,” to which the bench asked, “Why are there so many departments involved in granting permissions?”

The ACB had earlier filed an affidavit in court, saying 457 projects have been approved under the rules, of which surplus area to be recovered is 198,646.45 sq.m. worth compensation of Rs 37.54 crore. But a majority of this area is from 260 ongoing or stalled projects, meaning which the surplus amount can only be paid after the completion of the projects.

MHADA on its own also initiated prosecution against 34 developers, and final reports have been filed against the concerned developers in 26 cases. Further, civil proceedings against 29 developers were initiated and MHADA recovered 6,376.12 sq.m. from redeveloped areas and Rs 40.47 crore as penalty.