Supreme Court upholds Bombay HC order quashing SRA acquisition of Bandra land

MUMBAI: Pointing out the "invisible but pervading influence of the powerful private developer" behind land acquisition under the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, Supreme Court on Friday upheld a Bombay HC order that quashed acquisition of Church Trust land in Mount Mary Complex, Bandra, by Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA).

The SC noted the trust had since 2013 expressed interest in redeveloping the land. The SC bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan said there is a need for practical and actionable safeguards in a legal system involving competing interests among private parties and quashed acquisition of a portion of land measuring 1,596.40 sq m under the Act. Throughout this case, the SRA and its CEO appeared to have abandoned their public duty to uphold rule of law and protect rights of the landowner, SC held.

"On the contrary, the facts reveal a prejudiced attempt by the SRA to undermine legislative and judicial efforts and hand over the land and the benefits of its rehabilitation to Saldanha Real Estate Pvt Ltd."The SC upheld the HC order in appeals filed by Saldanha Real Estate Pvt Ltd and Shri Kadeshwari CHS Ltd (proposed) and the SRA versus the Bishop John Rodrigues and others. The dispute under consideration concerned validity of land acquisition.

The HC on June 11, 2024, allowed the writ petition filed by the landowner, declaring the acquisition void and directed SRA to consider the landowner's proposal for redevelopment.

The appeals were filed by the proposed housing society of slumdwellers, the developer selected by the society, and SRA. The issues before SC involved in-depth analysis of the legislative policy under a part of the Slums Act, specifically regarding rights of landowners to redevelop a Slum Rehabilitation Area (SR Area) and the corresponding duties of SRA.

The SC held that "SRA, for reasons best known to it, exhibited a singular focus towards opposing the Church Trust's attempts to redevelop, so as to pave the way for Saldanha's SR Scheme. The Trust's proposal was discarded on hyper-technical grounds, while Saldanha's submission was processed despite its own defects."The SC said actions of a public authority, "marred by collusion and connivance and motivated by extraneous profit interests of private builders, are highly depreciable (sic) and underline the possibility of bureaucratic misuse of statutory provisions." The SC held that SRA cannot proceed to acquire land unless the right of the Church Trust is extinguished if it fails to submit a redevelopment scheme within the prescribed period of 120 days. The SC held acquisition proceedings cannot be allowed and HC rightly nipped these proceedings in the bud. it.