asn 1 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY. ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION REVIEW PETITION LODGING NO.2 OF 2011 IN WRIT PETITION NO.1999 OF 2010 M/s.Vilayati Ram Mittal ...Petitioner V/s. The State of Maharashtra . ...Respondent WITH REVIEW PETITION LODGING NO.3 OF 2011 IN WRIT PETITION NO.1606 OF 2010 M/s.Vilayati Ram Mittal .....Petitioner V/s. Slum Rehabilitation Authority & Ors....Respondents WITH REVIEW PETITION LODGING NO.4 OF 2011 IN WRIT PETITION NO.2571 OF 2010 M/s.Vilayati Ram Mittal ....Petitioner V/s. Slum Rehabilitation Authority & Ors....Respondents Mr. S.S. Redij for the Petitioner in RPWL-No.3 of 2011 Mr. S.K. Chaurasia, for the Petitioner in RPWL No.4 of 2011 Mr. P.K. Samdani, Senior Advocate along with Mr. C.S.Balsara, Sharan Jagtiany, Mr. Altab Diamondwala, Mr. Jeyesh Vyas, Ms. Sheetal Angle, Ms. Asha Nair and Mr. Sayed Mohd. Hyder i/b. Diyva Shah & Associates for Respondent No.6 in RPWL No.2 of 2011 and for Respondent No. 4 in RPWL No.3 and 4 of 2011. asn 2 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. CORAM: MOHIT S. SHAH, C.J. & DR. D.Y.CHANDRACHUD, J. DATE : 16 DECEMBER 2011. P.C. The review petitioner was appointed as developer for a rehabilitation project for 432 families residing in slums. Since the Co- operative Housing Society of the slum dwellers was dissatisfied with the petitioner as no development had taken place for a number of years, the Society resolved to replace the petitioner by appointing Omkar Realtors & Developers Pvt. Ltd. as developer. SRA permitted the Co- operative Society of slum dwellers to make this change. Aggrieved by the decision of the SRA, the petitioner moved the High Powered Committee which remitted the matter to the SRA. Challenging the said decision of the High Powered Committee, three writ petitions came to be filed, one by the Co-operative Society of Slum Dwellers, another by Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. and the third by the present petitioner. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties at length, this Court delivered a judgment dated 27 September 2010 and passed the following order:- “Hence, while allowing Writ Petition No.1606 of 2010 and Writ Petition No.1999 of 2010 and while setting aside the order dated 30 June 2010 of the High Powered Committee, we restore the order dated 2 March 2006 of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority with the following further directions:- (1) The Slum Rehabilitation Authority shall consider the matter of regularization for the purposes of deciding whether regularization should be granted in respect of the construction put up by respondent No.3 in light of the fact that respondent No.3 had put up the construction beyond the boundary of slum plot. asn 3 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. If the Slum Rehabilitation Authority decides not to regularize the said construction, that will be an end of the matter and the pending construction will have to be demolished. (2) However, if the Slum Rehabilitation Authority decides to regularize the construction, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority will get the said construction valued by competent agency and direct the Petitioner-M/s. Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. to deposit with the Slum Rehabilitation Authority the said cost of construction with interest at the rate of 12 % per annum with a fifteen percent of return on such investment (cost of construction plus interest as directed above).Such amount shall be required to be deposited by the petitioner M/s. Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. with Slum Rehabilitation Authority within one month after the competent agency calculates cost of construction and the Slum Rehabilitation Authority gives the intimation to the Petitioner/M/s. Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. (3) The amounts so deposited with the Slum Rehabilitation Authority shall be paid to respondent No.3 if respondent No.3 agrees to accept the said amount in full and final settlement of its claim against Slum Rehabilitation Authority, State of Maharashtra and the petitioner-M/s. Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. (4) In case respondent No.3 does not wish to accept the said amount, the amount shall stand transferred to the account of Suit No.719 of 2008 of respondent No. 3 pending before this Court and shall be invested in fixed deposit for a period of one year under the cumulative interest scheme to be renewed periodically without any further orders of this Court and such deposit shall abide by the final orders which will be passed in the said suit. (5) All the three Writ Petitions accordingly stand disposed of”. asn 4 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. 2 Aggrieved by the first order dated 29 September 2010, the review petitioner had already filed Special Leave Petition Nos.33292 of 2010, 33293 of 2010 and 33294 of 2010. Since the subsequent order dated 26 October 2010 was passed during the pendency of the Special Leave Petitions, the review petitioner filed interlocutory applications which are annexed to the affidavit in reply filed on behalf of M/s. Omkar Realtors & Developers Pvt. Ltd., in which, the review petitioner specifically prayed for permission to bring on record the order dated 26 October 2010 and also permission to urge additional grounds in regard to the aforesaid corrected and fresh Judgment dated 26 October 2010 and also challenged the impugned orders dated 27 September 2010 and 26 October 2010. The review petitioner had filed other interlocutory applications for urging additional grounds to challenge the said judgment and order dated 26 October 2010. In the said interlocutory applications the review petitioner urged grounds which are now urged in the present review petitions. 3 Having gone through the memo of both the said interlocutory applications, we find that review petitioner has urged the grounds in the present review petitions which were urged in the aforesaid interlocutory applications. The learned counsel for M/s. Onkar Realtors & Developers Private Limited states that both the interlocutory applications were placed before the Supreme Court when Special Leave Petition Nos. 33292 to 33294 of 2010 were heard and the order dated 6 December 2010 came to be passed. The order of the Supreme Court also referred to the said applications in the following terms. “With appln(s) for permission to file lengthy list of dates, permission to bring on record subsequent event and additional documents and prayer for interim relief and office report)”. asn 5 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. 4 Having gone through the contents of the above interlocutory applications and the memo of the present review petitions, it is clear that the same grounds were urged before the Supreme Court in the above interlocutory applications. In our opinion, filing a review petition in this Court upon the dismissal of the Special Leave Petition would amount to an abuse of the process of the Court as held by the Supreme Court in Meghmala and others Vs.G. Narasimha Reddy and others (2010) 8 SCC 383. In Paragraphs 25 and 26 of the judgment it is clearly held:- “Thus, the law on the issue stand crystallized to the effect that in case a litigant files a review petition before filing the special leave petition before this Court and it remains pending till the special leave petition stands dismissed, the review petition deserves to be considered. In case, it is filed subsequent to dismissal of the special leave petition, the process of filing review application amounts to abuse of process of the court”. (emphasis supplied). 5 Apart from the aforesaid conduct of the review petitioner, we find that the conclusion in both the orders dated 27 September 2010 and 26 October 2010 is the same. Even the reasons given by us in both the orders are same. Only following sentences were added in Paragraph 18 of the Judgment while delivering the order dated 26 October 2011:- asn 6 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. “More particularly when M/s. Villayati Ram Mittal has already filed suit No.719 of 2008 before this Court for damages challenging the termination of LOI issued by Slum Rehabilitation Authority in favour of M/s. Villayati Ram Mittal. Since M/s. Villayati Ram Mittal has already elected to sue for damages, it cannot now be permitted to challenge the appointment of M/s. Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. as the developer. Otherwise, the project for rehabilitation of slum dwellers will be further delayed much against the wishes of the members of Khapridev Co-Operative Housing Society Ltd. who are waiting for the redevelopment of their dwellings/rehabilitation since 1995”. (emphasis supplied) 6 The underlined sentence in Paragraph 18 of the order dated 26 October 2010 is consistent with the reasons which were also given in the order dated 27 September 2010 and was otherwise also referred to in the form of submission of the learned counsel for the parties (Paragraph 9 of the said order dated 27 September 2010) which had commended itself to the Court. 7 We would also like to note that before moving this Bench with the present review petitions on 11 November 2011, the review petitioners filed Notice of Motion No.212 of 2011 and got it circulated before another Bench. When it was pointed out to the said Bench that review petitions were filed by the petitioners and the same are pending before another Bench, the said Bench declined to entertain Notice of Motion No.212 of 2011 on the ground that the petitioners may take appropriate steps. The said order reads as under:- “We are informed that review petition filed by the petitioner is pending in this Court. In the circumstances, it is not possible for us to entertain the asn 7 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. present motion. The petitioners may, if they are so advised, take appropriate steps”. 8 Apart from the aforesaid grounds which are more than sufficient to dismiss the present review petitions, we also note that the offending construction which was put up by the present review petitioner was held to be illegal by the SRA. Considering the directions given by us in the order dated 26 October 2011, the said illegal construction has been demolished as further directed by the SRA on 21 March 2011 in terms of the following communication:- “In terms of the above referred High Court Order, you are hereby directed to demolish the illegal construction/unauthorized partially constructed and incomplete rehab building, erected by M/s. Villayatiram Mittal on the plots referred hereinabove, since the same is not regularized. You are directed to report the compliance of the same to the undersigned at the earliest”. 9 We may further note that the learned counsel for Omkar Realtors and Developers Private Limited brought to our notice the fact that as new developers they have acted on the LOI issued by the SRA and constructed three buildings of 15 storeys each. 10 In view of the above also, entertaining the present review petitions would set back the entire clock and come in the way of rehabilitation of 432 slum dwellers by the developers who have already obtained a Commencement Certificate for construction of free sale buildings, for which bookings have also been done and thus, third party interests have been created. asn 8 rpw-2-2011 & Ors. 11 For all the aforesaid reasons, the review petitions are dismissed. 12 At the request of the learned counsel for the review petitioner, we clarify that it will be open to the review petitioner to prosecute the suit already filed by them. (CHIEF JUSTICE) (DR. D.Y.CHANDRACHUD, J.)