New Delhi: The Bombay High Court, on Tuesday directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to demolish unauthorised construction at Union minister Narayan Rane’s bungalow located in Mumbai’s Juhu area. The court observed that it violated the Floor Space Index (FSI) and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules.
The court also imposed a Rs 10 lakh fine on Rane and ordered that the amount has to be deposited towards the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority within two weeks.
A division bench comprising Justices R D Dhanuka and Kamal Khata said the BMC cannot be permitted to consider and allow the second application filed by a company run by the Rane family, seeking regularisation of the unauthorised construction as it would encourage “wholesale unauthorised constructions”.
The court ordered the BMC to demolish the unauthorised construction within a period of two weeks and submit a compliance report to the court one week thereafter.
Rane’s lawyer Shardul Singh sought that the court stays its order for six weeks so that he could approach the Supreme Court. However, the bench rejected his appeal.
According to the news agency ANI, the development came after several complaints were filed by RTI activist Santosh Daundkar in 2017. Daundkar and his lawyer Aditya Pratap Singh have welcomed the decision.
The BMC had earlier sent two notices to Rane regarding the unauthorised construction at his bungalow. The notices were issued under section 351 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act for alleged unauthorised change of use in violation of a plan approved by the city’s civic body, ANI reported.
The notices were signed by a designated officer of the K-West ward of the BMC. Narayan Rane lives in an eight-storey bungalow in Juhu owned by a company called Kalka Real Estate Pvt Ltd.
(With agency inputs)