MUMBAI: The Supreme Court paved the way for a large slum rehabilitation scheme for the development of the Bharat Nagar slum in Bandra East at a prime location, dismissing an appeal by several slum dwellers who claimed it was not a slum and sought to stall the project.

The SC held that it was a ‘censused slum’ and said such slums are already included in the definition of slums for redevelopment; thus, no separate notification is required under the Slum Act. The apex court dismissed an appeal filed by occupants of the MHADA plot. They challenged a December 2022 eviction notice issued by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). Their eviction would enable the redevelopment to proceed.

Of nearly 3,000 slum structures, 2,625 were found eligible for rehabilitation. The occupants, Mansoor Ali and others, claimed before the SC to be rent-paying tenants of MHADA and argued redevelopment could not be permitted as a slum.
They challenged a January 2023 Bombay High Court dismissal of their plea. The HC observed that the area was a slum. On February 27, the SC bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Krishnan Vinod Chandran found “no merit in the appeal” and upheld the HC ruling.
The SC noted that the litigation spanned across courts since the occupants knew that a MHADA layout would yield bigger rehab units than the SRA scheme, which gets them only 300 sq ft. The SC said, “It may be a MHADA property technically, but over the years it has grown as a slum and therefore, for purely practical reasons, it needed to be developed by SRA under Regulation 33(10) of DCR (Development Control Rules) – as a slum – and not as a MHADA layout under Regulation 33(5) of DCR.”
The SC also noted one building for 260 slum dwellers with 70 percent of the slum society consenting to development, “was at an advanced stage of construction” and the ineligible occupants “cannot be allowed to disturb this ongoing project as it would defeat the whole purpose of the redevelopment which is going to benefit a large number of eligible slum dwellers.”
SRA sanctioned a rehabilitation scheme in 2010 and appointed a builder to redevelop the area for Bharat Ekta Co-Operative Society under a slum scheme; the plot was joined with an adjoining plot, and an amalgamated scheme was being implemented in phases, the SC noted. Some occupants opposed phase 2 and thus the SRA invoked its power of eviction in 2019.
The occupants raised doubts about it being a slum and also of the 70 percent consent. But the SC said the AGRC in a detailed order had said they were removed from Bandra during a road-widening project and were placed on the MHADA plot in a transit camp. “There is no landlord-tenant relationship” with MHADA, and they were only paying a transit fee and other service charges, said the AGRC order which, never challenged, attained finality, the HC said. The SC also said the occupants could not satisfactorily explain why the AGRC order was not challenged.
Only four of those before the SC were there before the HC. The “rest of the appellants are fence sitters who have directly approached this Court claiming that they are also affected by the order of the High Court, even though they were never a party before the High Court,” said Justices Dhulia and Chandran.

What SC said
Appellants have only been using dilatory tactics to delay the project as they were found to be ineligible slum dwellers since they were transit camp tenants, who were given transit accommodation during the widening of the Western Express Highway
Censused slums
Under DCR 33(10), these are slums located on lands belonging to govt, govt undertakings, or Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation and incorporated in the records of the land-owning authority as having been censused in 1976, 1980, or 1985 or prior to 1 January 1995.