Wadala Chawl residents ask BMC to forfeit redevelopment agreement with East & West Developers.

Residents of Azad Nagar chawls in Wadala, in violation of the Bombay High Court ruling in March 2019, wrote to Municipal Commissioner Praveen Pardeshi to terminate the development agreement with East & West Developers, a part of RNA Group, for failing to pay transit rent to 324 residents.

On 1 September at the project location near Wadala bus depot, more than 200 people from chawls took part in a protest condemning the developer of not commencing the construction nor paying rent to them. However, the project started to redevelop in 2003.

The Shree Azad Nagar Co-operative Housing Society held a special general meeting on 15 September after the protests and decided that by 5 October the developer would be given the final opportunity to pay for the arrears. The resolution said that the society would terminate its development agreement if the company failed to pay, and would ask the BMC to issue a public notice.

The Azad Nagar chawls had 32 ground floor chawls spread across 8.5 acres of land near Wadala bus depot. This plot of land was resettled for people displaced by the massive explosion on the dock in 1944. The area underwent redevelopment in 2003 and the society and developer signed an agreement.

The Society, East & West Developers and the BMC signed a tripartite agreement under Development Control Regulation 33(7) in June 2006 to reconstruct the cessed structures. In 2015, all the chawls were demolished and the tenants had given the developer the land but never begun to be constructed. In 2017, the builder stopped paying the rent to the majority of the tenants of more than Rs 40,000 per month.

Justice Gautam Patel heard a complaint of contempt on 20 March 2019 and strongly opposed the builder. In para 19 of the 17-page order, he said: “If East & West fails in two circumstances to pay as set forth herein, all agreements with the builder, regardless of anything in any previous order or consent terms, shall be terminated automatically. In this instance, all rights and entitlements of East & West Developers for this venture will be forfeited and lost.” Further, it also directed the BMC commissioner to pass the appropriate directions “without issuing any notice hearing or recording reasons”.

The residents have however said that the developer has not paid the rent and committed not only two but eight defaults until October 2019.

A spokesperson for East & West Developers said: “We are not aware of the tenants going to MCGM despite the fact that the matter was sub-judice and rentals were paid in compliance with the agreements. We are not aware of any deadlines for October and what it was set.”

Source: Economic Times