The Bombay High Court recently observed that even if the state's Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme for granting free of cost flats to slum dwellers, is "Constitutionally valid" yet it is not immune from "judicial criticism." The HC also held that even if a person's house under the SRA is declared eligible, the structure should be pulled down for the scheme and cannot be given protection from demolition.
A bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar was hearing a plea filed by one Mohanish Chikkalkar seeking a commercial unit in a newly constructed SRA building in the city.
As per Chikkalkar, he had a commercial shop in the slum prior to the redevelopment and was thus entitled to a commercial unit in the new building. However, he was allotted a residential flat on the fifth floor of the building but he still sought a commercial unit. And accordingly, he came up with a hutment on the compound of the building, which was earmarked for parking spaces.
Chikkalkar urged the bench to issue directives to the authorities to amend the allocation scheme and revisit the entire procedure.
"If we allow to amend the plans and revisit the entire scheme, clearly the other slum dwellers who are in occupation of the rehab building, with an occupation certificate, would be affected," the judges opined, adding, "We do not see any possibility of a wholesale reconfiguring of an already developed scheme and slum rehabilitation project for a single individual."
"Consequently, Chikkalkar cannot now have the option of claiming that the project being revisited, plans be amended, and amenities promised and assured to the rehab building occupants be reduced or taken away," the bench said.
The judges further pointed out, "This is a common misunderstanding about slum rehabilitation projects, viz., that until eligibility is finally favourably
decided in favour of the claimant, the structure in question must notbe demolished. That is not the frame of the slum rehabilitation law."
"The present slum rehabilitation lawcontemplate in situ re-development of areas notified and declared as slums under the Slum Act. The underlying policy has recently been sharply criticised by a bench of this Court headed by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta. We only note that the state’s slum rehab policy, even ifConstitutionally valid, is not immune to even judicial criticism."
The judges accordingly held that if a person is eligible, the entitlement to allotment in a rehab building (and, in the meantime, other benefits such as transit rent or accommodation) automatically follows; and the hutment cannot be allowed to stand.
"If the person is held to be ineligible, then there is no entitlement to any rehab benefits — and again, thestructure cannot continue," the bench said, adding, "Thus, the determination of eligibility one way or the other has nothing at all to do with the physicalcontinuance of the structure. Eligibility is linked to a structure whose prior existence on site has been previously recorded and found by the initial survey."
The bench has adjourned the matter for further hearing till March 9 with a directive to the SRA to spell out if Chikkalkar could be given a commercial unit in the building and by when.
