SC concludes 20-year old battle, declares two JVPD plots as an ‘Open Spaces’.

In a judgment closing a 20-year-old battle, the Supreme Court ordered that two open spaces at the Juhu-Vile Parle Development Scheme (JVPD) be maintained as open spaces only. It upheld a 2017 Bombay High Court Order labelling Mhada’s decision to approve construction on the two layout open spaces as an “illegality” and “set off with a gold mine, offering a tremendous advantage to private parties without obtaining the least value from the public exchequer.”

In dismissing a special leave petition filed by Anjuman-EShiate Ali Trust of the Bohri community challenging the HC order, the Supreme Court said, “As rightly held by HC, we are also of the opinion that the two parcels, shown as open spaces/garden in permitted layout, cannot be used for construction.”

Architect P K Das, Save Open Space convenor Ashoke Pandit and a resident, Bharat Shetty, have fought the case.

The matter involves 22,500 sq ft plot 6 on 9th Wireless Road and 15,129 sq ft plot 3 on North-South 10th Road.  Spaces constitute 10% of the overall area of the two layouts, while BMC’s Design Control

Rules (1967 and 1991) require more than 15% for these large plots as open space.

The two are comprised of 13 and 19 housing societies, with one sub-plot designated as open space in each layout. The two plots were given to the trust in 1967, which turned them over to 57 individuals and two cooperative societies for housing low-income community members. In 1999, Mhada submitted to BMC for upgrade a revised

JVPD development design, showing no reservations on the plots. The trust in SC argued that the layout of 1967 was temporary. But SC said, “There is no such term as the temporary structure in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Regulations and Act.”

The court acknowledged that the 1999 development plan did not include information of BMC’s sanctioned internal layouts. SC determined the appeals contained no merit.