An article about " Legalising building fraud will lead to disaster- High Court "

Legalising building fraud will lead to disaster- High Court

The Bombay High Court, while hearing petitions seeking to legalise illegal structures in various parts of the city, has ruled that Regularization of unauthorized constructions will have to be permitted on a case-to-case basis and should not be granted as a matter of course.

A division bench of the High Court held that the planning authority had to consider various factors such as infrastructure, congestion, water supply, and roads before regularizing illegal constructions against payment of a penalty.  If there is an increasing pressure and burden on the existing facilities and amenities then the whole system would collapse resulting in large-scale inconvenience, it was observed.

The cases before the Hon'ble Court pertained to regularization of various structures in Bandra, Goregaon, Boriveli, and Pydhonie apart from the top 17 floors of Gaurav Gagan, a 24-storeyed building in Kandiveli (West).

The Hon'ble High Court further ruled that it cannot be said as a matter of general rule that unauthorized constructions must be regularized if the floor space index (FSI) is available or can be generated in the form of transfer of development rights (TDR) from other sources by the builder. Although section 53(1) of the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act provides for regularization of unauthorized structures, the indiscriminate regularization through TDR or FSI can have disastrous consequences. Before the authorities take any decision about regularization they must not only consider the alleged hardship to individual flat purchasers but also the interest of those living in the neighbourhood and the public at large.