The Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) to explain whether the tender issued for the 24-acre Bandra Reclamation development project includes four acres reserved for a burial ground and a municipal dispensary.
HC calls for an explanation from MSRDC
A division bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Arif Doctor called for an explanation from the MSRDC while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking direction to the state government to hand over land reserved for burial ground to the BMC. Filed by Mohammed Furqan Qureshi, the petition pointed out that the urban development department had issued a notification on September 29, 2022, earmarking the plot for burial ground. The BMC has said that 3,000 sq m land will be given each for Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities.
The court was shown a copy of the tender issued by the MSRDC, stating that it owns a gross plot area of 57 acres on the Western Express Highway in Bandra near J Kumar casting yard. It states that 28 acres of net plot area is available for development after excluding land for road, social amenities and gardens. “Of the total land, four acres is currently under reservation and 24 acres is freely available for development. The remaining four acres will be available for development in due course,” the tender copy read.
MSRDC required to file an affidavit providing clarity
The court noted that apart from the cemetery, the area has been reserved for a municipal dispensary as well. “In the absence of the affidavit which was required to be filed by the state, we are unable to decipher as to whether the land reserved for cemetery is part of the tender notice issued by the MSRDC,” the court said in its order.
Taking note of the fact that the tender process is likely to be concluded soon, the bench said it was required for the MSRDC to file an affidavit clarifying whether the plot mentioned in the tender notice includes three plots reserved for cemetery and another plot for municipal dispensary. The court has also asked BMC to gather necessary information and file an affidavit and kept the matter for hearing on February 27.
During an earlier hearing, the court had observed that it was “incomprehensible” that the government had failed to hand over the possession of land to the BMC for setting up a burial ground despite notifying the same in 2022. Qureshi’s PIL sought handing over the reserved plot to the BMC for development of the burial ground contending that the community’s population in the area was 1.72 lakh and there was lack of space for a cemetery.
