The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Bandra Church trust, cancelling the Slum Rehabilitation Authority’s acquisition of its land. The Court said the landowner’s first right to redevelop cannot be ignored.
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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on August 22 gave a big judgment in a land dispute case in Bandra, Mumbai. The case was between the Church trust that owns the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount and the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA).
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan set aside the SRA’s acquisition of the Church-owned land and strongly said that a landowner’s right to redevelop cannot be taken away casually.
The case was about a 1,596 sq. m. plot of land in Bandra, where hutments have been standing since the 1930s. This land was marked as a slum in 1978 and again in 2002. Later, in 2019, the slum dwellers made a proposed housing society and joined hands with Saldanha Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. to redevelop the land.
The Church trust opposed this plan, saying redevelopment should be part of a larger project covering its entire 10,000 sq. m. property, not just a small portion.
In May 2021, the trust also filed its own redevelopment proposal. But the SRA rejected it, saying it was not in the “prescribed format.”
The SRA then moved forward with the slum society’s proposal and started acquisition under Section 14 of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971.
The SRA argued that the Church had failed to submit a proper plan within the 120-day time limit.
The Bombay High Court, in June 2024, struck down the acquisition, saying the trust’s rights had been overlooked. The slum society, the developer, and the SRA challenged this before the Supreme Court.
Before the apex court, the society argued that the Church had ignored the problems of slum dwellers for many years and had also failed to submit a proper scheme in time. The SRA supported this argument, saying that after the 2018 amendments to the Slums Act, it was the landowner’s duty to come forward first with a redevelopment plan.
But the Church trust defended itself. It said its proposal was submitted within time if one counts from the official communication of slum declaration. It also cited the Supreme Court’s own COVID-19 orders, which extended limitation periods.
The trust added that its plan should not have been rejected just because of technical issues, especially when it had already made a feasibility report and approached both the SRA and the municipal corporation.
The Supreme Court accepted the trust’s stand.
It said:
“The owner of a Slum Rehabilitation Area has a preferential right to develop it, and without giving due opportunity to exercise that right, the State or the SRA cannot proceed to acquire the land.”
The Court held that the SRA’s rejection of the trust’s proposal was unfair and against the principles of law and justice. It also criticised the way the SRA, the housing society, and the developer worked together to push aside the trust.
The bench stated:
“The acquisition of the subject land, initiated without proper consideration of the owner’s proposal, is unsustainable in law.”
The Supreme Court finally upheld the Bombay High Court’s decision and cancelled the acquisition proceedings.
- The appellants — the slum society, Saldanha Real Estate, and the SRA — were represented by Senior Advocates S Choudhari, Nikhil Sakhardande, and Shyam Divan, along with a team of lawyers.
- The respondent Church trust was represented by Senior Advocates Milind Sathe, Chander Uday Singh, Shyam Mehta, and Sudhanshu S Choudhari, with their legal team.
CASE TITLE:
Saldanha Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. vs. Bishop John Rodrigues & Ors.
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