Mumbai: Bombay High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by former Mumbai MP Gopal Shetty who wanted mezzanine floors of slum hutments to be treated as separate units, thus entitling slum dwellers rehabilitation rights.
Shetty, who had filed the PIL in 2021 when he was sitting MP, challenged the constitutional validity of a provision of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) (Amendment) Act, 2017, for not counting the mezzanine floor of slums as a separate entity.
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Shetty, a former MP from North Mumbai, said not having a mechanism to count the mezzanine, loft areas and first-floor tenements as separate slum units violates the fundamental rights guaranteed to slum dwellers. He said their right to equality and life was adversely impacted.
The HC division bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Bharati Dangre, held that Shetty “miserably failed to discharge the burden on him to establish the infraction of Article 14 of the Constitution of India… The petitioner has failed to establish that the provision is either arbitrary or discriminatory or violates any of the fundamental rights of the slum dwellers,” HC said in its Jan 31 order, which was available on Saturday.
Amarendra Mishra, Shetty’s counsel, sought directions to the state to provide rehabilitation benefits even to “independent first floor/mezzanine/loft/tenements and/or other non-protected occupiers declared under the Slum Scheme, prior to the cut-off date of Jan 1, 2011.” He said the provision ought to be struck down since it fails to violate the fundamental right of slum dwellers for alternate accommodation under the Slum Scheme or Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Scheme (PMAY Scheme).
Advocate General Birendra Saraf said a June 2018 judgment dealt at length with the slum rehabilitation provisions in a govt resolution dealing with loft occupants. He argued that the Slum Rehabilitation Act was enacted to curb the proliferation of slums and to make the city slum-free. Saraf argued that Section 3B (5) of the Act cannot be construed to mean that they would be entitled to free rehabilitation under the Slum Act. In the process, certain categories of slum dwellers are held to be eligible for rehabilitation by the state.
The state does not recognise and protect the illegal extension of slum structures by the creation of lofts, mezzanines or first floors, and this has been the policy of the govt since 2001, which was earlier upheld by the court, he said.
Senior counsel Milind Sathe for the BMC said the provision under challenge deals with matters which may be prescribed in the slum rehabilitation scheme. Sathe also argued that the Act has gone through extensive amendments over the years.
The high court analysed the provisions invoked in the PIL and the aim of the law and held that the provision provides that the slum rehabilitation scheme may contain a provision relating to the allotment of tenements either in situ or otherwise, on ownership or on rent, to the other non-protected occupiers up to Nov 1, 2011, subject to the availability of tenements.
