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.
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