The Bombay High Court yesterday directed the police to register a case against officials of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) for allegedly colluding with developers and causing a loss of Rs 40,000 crore to the state exchequer.
A division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and S K Shinde was hearing public interest litigation filed by Kamlakar Shenoy, claiming that MHADA has failed to take possession of around 1.37 lakh square meters of the surplus area from developers after the redevelopment of cessed buildings.
MHADA, the government housing agency, also looks after the maintenance of hundreds of old and dilapidated privately-owned buildings in Mumbai, whose tenants pay its cess'.
The petitioner claimed that as per the Development Control Regulation 33 (7), any surplus area of a redevelopment project is the property of the state government.
Shenoy alleged that MHADA officials were aware of this provision but still failed to recover surplus area from builders who redeveloped cessed buildings.
The bench, in its judgment, directed the Economic Offences Wing of police to register an FIR within five days.
The high court said once the developer is granted permission to redevelop cessed buildings, MHADA officials, being public servants, were under statutory obligation to ensure recovery of surplus constructed area.
But by wilful omissions, the MHADA officials allowed developers to appropriate such surplus area and thereby caused huge loss to the state and unlawful gain to the developers.
The court noted that the surplus area was sold by developers in the open market. (AIR NEWS)