Bombay high court disposes petitions on kopare village rehabilitation and directs unresolved issues to civil court

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court disposed of a bunch of petitions and two Public Interest Litigations (PIL) concerning the rehabilitation of residents from Kopare village, whose land was originally acquired for the National Defence Academy (NDA).

The Court held that the allegations raised in the petition involved disputed questions of fact that could not be adjudicated under a PIL.The dispute traces back to 1942, when land in Kopare was requisitioned for World War II by the British govt, and later formally acquired in 1951 for the NDA. To rehabilitate the affected villagers, land was procured at Mouje Hingane Budruk, Pune, in 1961. Decades later, in 2001, the development of this land was handed over to builder Kakade Construction Co.

Pvt. Ltd. under an agreement with the villagers.The petition filed in 2018 by people claiming to be heirs of original affected villagers alleged that the developer engaged in fraud, forgery, and manipulation of land records, claiming that the rehabilitation scheme was not implemented as promised. They sought revocation of the development rights granted to the builder. The HC also clubbed together another petition filed in 2019 and two public interest litigations filed in 2009 and 2023 by two foundations on the issue.

However, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad, in its recent order, observed that such allegations of forgery and manipulation of records required detailed evidence and could only be examined by a civil court, not through a PIL. "The allegations of forgery and manipulation of records shall be the subject before the Civil Court where parties shall lead evidence. This is also a well-settled proposition in law that the writ petition involving dispute over immovable property shall not be maintainable," the HC said.The HC noted that a 2013 report by a Pune collector placed before it in April said 315 out of 350 families were rehabilitated and directed the builder to comply with the collector's report for the remaining 35. The builder’s advocate in court, said six of the 35 were already offered possession of flats.The HC, in the September 29 order uploaded on October 17, noted that a status quo order it passed last July seemed to have delayed execution of the project. The HC added, “At this stage, when the project is almost complete, in the petitions filed in the year 2009, 2018, 2019, and 2023, no such order can be passed which would completely wash out the project. In our opinion, these Public Interest Litigations are not at all maintainable since the aggrieved persons have remedy in law to approach the appropriate Court.

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