Janhit Manch Through Its President ... vs The State Of Maharashtra

5. Now, turning to the problem referred to aforesaid, of the expanding slums; the Government of Maharashtra has launched a comprehensive slum rehabilitation scheme by introducing an innovative concept of using land as a 4 resource and allowing FSI as an incentive, in the form of tenements for sale in the open market, for cross-subsidization of the slum rehabilitation tenements, which are to be provided free of cost to the slum-dwellers. The petition arises out of a prayer of the petitioner to effectively review the existing Development Control Regulations for Greater Bombay, 1991 (hereinafter referred to as ‘DCR’). Appellant No.1 claims to be an NGO espousing legal issues concerning the State and the Nation, in larger public interest, while the second appellant is the President of the first appellant. A perusal of the pleadings and the impugned judgment shows that the primary question which occasioned the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court to examine the matter was whether the State, on account of financial inability to provide housing to encroachers on public and private lands, residing in structures which came up before 1.1.1995, could grant TDR to builders to be used in the suburbs of Mumbai, by permitting increase of FSI from 1 to 2. This was occasioned on account of the protection granted from eviction and the inability of the State to free parks, gardens, footpaths and roads from encroachment for which, in the wisdom of the Government, they chose a cut- off date of 1.1.1995. The original prayers show that the concern of the petitioner was to stop the grant of TDR in certain specified areas as under:

8. Thirdly and most importantly, the second appellant himself is a builder who was residing in a building constructed by the use of TDR in Deepak Villa, Vallabh Nagar Society, J.V.P.D. Scheme, Mumbai, at the time of filing of the petition. Apparently, appellant No.2 had failed to get advantage of the Slum Regulation Scheme, and thus a defence was raised by the respondents, to the petition that it was a mala fide attempt, couched in the form of a public interest litigation. In fact, the petitions were attributed with the motive of attempting to manipulate the prices of properties. The use of TDR in corridor areas had resulted in prices in the western suburbs to have fallen substantially since there was a boost in the housing sector, which in turn had hurt the commercial interest of builders, including that of the appellants. The issue was further aggravated by the fact that the second appellant is a partner of a firm by the name La Builde Associates, which had executed several projects in the suburbs of Mumbai. A Writ Petition No.1080 of 2003 was filed in the name of the said firm, assailing grant of TDR towards a competing party in a tender. This petition was dismissed on 28.4.2003. The present petition is stated to be a sequitur r to that insofar as it was moved 7 only after the earlier petition, that is Writ Petition No.1080 of 2003, was dismissed, and thus having failed in the earlier proceedings and tender, an endeavor was made in the second proceedings, in the form of this present petition.

15. We, thus, dismiss the appeal leaving it open to the parties to bear their own costs.

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DECEMBER 14, 2018