Post-Maharashtra Assembly Election 2024: What Real Estate Buyers Can Expect
Nov , 27
Building Projects in Mumbai To Be Recorded Online: Bombay High Court
The Bombay high court has said that it will consider passing a direction to BMC, Mumbai to put records of all the construction projects online. As the issues of illegal means in the construction industry continue to grow, there’s a certain need to revisit the laws. While focusing on the same topic, Bombay HC also stated that the court would try to revisit the laws once and for all. HC also mentioned that all the records will be made available on the citizens’ portal of the BMC website.
The first issue faced is whether the BMC will be appointed as the public authority and planning authority of Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act. There is a question that does BMC have the right to issue the right that will ensure the provisions of the Right to Information Act and the Evidence Act under which the records relating to every construction project is publicly available on their website.
The next issue was about leaving notices about various kinds of jobs like stop-work, open and unattended without formally closing them. But whether notice issued or not, independent application of mind and signature of authorized officers is needed to close on inaction or on obtaining a report.
The Daulat House case was like the perfect example for this. The judges said that here in this case, the open notice created problems not only to the co-owner and its occupants, but also to the developer because it would not receive any occupation certificate. The stop-work notice was not even uploaded to the citizen’s portal until September.
The judges thought of considering whether an illegality in construction can be regularized, with an eye on the norms laid down by the Supreme Court in a series of judgments. The judges also declared that BMC and the municipal commissioner cannot exercise discretion to regularize it.
MCGM has adopted this policy even though this means going against all the principles which regularize illegality. The developer’s plans were amended and then sanctioned as a part of its ease of doing business.
