Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday justified its decision to convert the heritage mayor bungalow into a memorial for Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray. The civic body told the Bombay High Court, it has reserved the plot as a memorial for Thackeray in its Development Plan (DP) for 2034.
A division bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Nitin Jamdar was further informed, the ruling of the Supreme Court that no public properties can be converted into memorials of politicians, would not apply on the BMC’s project.
“The SC ruling saying that no public property can be converted into a memorial, will not be applicable on us. Our project (memorial) has been notified and recognised as Thackeray memorial even in the DP 2034, which was passed recently,” said senior counsel Anil Sakhre, who appeared for BMC.
The submission was made in response to the arguments of advocate Uday Warunjikar, who appeared by Jan Mukti Morcha, an NGO that has challenged the proposed memorial of Bal Thackeray near Shivaji Park, Dadar. “The trust — Bal Thackeray memorial trust, which is constituted to oversee the memorial consists of the son and grandson of Thackeray and thus it is not a public trust,” said Warunjikar.
Warunjikar further highlighted the nominal lease rate of Re 1 for which the BMC handed over the mayor bungalow to this trust, for construction of the memorial. “In so many matters this government says it has a shortage of funds. But here, in this case, it has given the plot at a takeaway amount.
I say, each member of the trust is capable to construct independent memorials, so why to waste public money,” Warunjikar argued. To this, Chief Justice Patil sought to know the ‘source of the funds’ which will be used for the construction of the memorial. “Whose money will be used for constructing the memorial. How can you say this will be out of public money?”
Replying to the query, Warunjikar informed the bench that recently the MMRDA in its annual budget allocated Rs 200 crore for this memorial. However, all the contentions of the petitioners were trashed by BMC counsel Sakhre. He said the civic body modified the existing laws, by following the due procedure of law.
As regard, the controversy of the trust, senior counsel Milind Sathe for the Maharashtra government, said several bureaucrats including civic chief Ajoy Mehta, are the ex-officio members of the trust and thus it is a ‘public charitable trust.’
Sathe further said the judiciary cannot interfere in the decision of the government and the civic body. “Even in the past, lands have been acquired for constructing monuments of persons, whom the government reveres a lot. This is a policy decision and thus is not open for judicial scrutiny,” Sathe argued.
