Mumbai: The Mumbai police informed the Bombay High Court on Friday that it will register an FIR against errant BMC officers and policemen who were responsible for demolition of 650 hutments at Jai Bhim Nagar in Powai on June 6 in the middle of a raging monsoon. The demolition was undertaken by the BMC, under police protection.
Public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar informed a bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan that the SIT had prima facie found that there is material against BMC officers and police and hence it was decided to file an FIR. Since the SIT does not have powers to register an FIR, it will be registered by the Powai police but probed by the SIT.
The SIT had said last week that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) undertook the demolition on June 6 without any order from the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), as claimed by the civic body. Venegaonkar had said that no demolition order was passed by SHRC.
The order was passed based on a complaint by one Namit Kini, who acquired some documents under the RTI. Probe revealed that the said “person” was fictitious as it was not unable to trace his whereabouts. Also there is no record to show documents were given by BMC in RTI.
The probe by SIT also revealed that the land on which the hutments were built was private land and not corporation land. Venegaonkar has said that there was BMC’s internal noting of 2021 which stated that the land was private land. Also, the State government circular restraining demolition during monsoon was subsisting at the time.
The HC has constituted the SIT, under the supervision of joint CP (crime) Lakhmi Gautam, to probe the FIR registered in the violence that erupted in the aftermath of demolition. The HC was hearing a plea by 36 homeless slum dwellers seeking prosecution of civic officials and the police for the demolition under the provisions of the IPC for house trespass, voluntarily causing hurt and provisions of the SC/ST Act. They have also sought compensation.
Earlier the State suggested that the residents’ complaint too be probed in the same FIR. However, petitioners’ Advocates Ghanshyam Upadhyay and Swaraj Jadhav said that the earlier FIR was against the residents at BMC’s behest for alleged resistance against the demolition, hence a separate FIR must be filed. The HC has kept the matter for hearing in November.
