Mumbai Every time a building collapses in Mumbai, Lalit Thak, a resident of Siddhi Sai building in Ghatkopar’s Damodar Park neighbourhood, relives the tragic morning of July 25, 2017, when he lost his family. Last Friday was no different when he watched in horror the viral video of the crumbling building in Om Shree Gijtanjali Society in Borivali’s Sai Baba Nagar.
“Thankfully, there was no loss of life but what will happen to their homes now? Will it be a repeat of what happened with us,” said the 39-year-old, who works at a commodities market in South Mumbai.
Five years ago, when tragedy struck the Ghatkopar building, Thak was in his third-floor house. He heard people screaming warnings that Siddhi Sai was caving in. He immediately asked his wife Amruta to rush down the stairs with their three-month-old baby Veronika, and his 55-year-old mother. They were seconds away from stepping out of the shaking building to safety when the structure came down in a heap, trapping them. Thak made a miraculous escape with minor injuries, but his family members were not as lucky.
Sixteen residents of the building and a carpenter who was finishing carpentry work for a resident were killed in the Siddhi Sai crash that morning. Fourteen others were injured. A Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) probe later blamed the crash on the illegal alterations carried out by Shiv Sena activist Sunil Shitap, who was also the secretary of the co-operative housing society (CHS), in his ground floor nursing home, rendering the building structurally weak.
It’s been five years since the tragedy; but Siddhi Sai residents continue to fight for their legitimate homes destroyed by a corrupt civic system. Shitap, who was arrested on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, served 31 months in prison but secured bail in March 2021. Politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who visited the crash site that day assured the residents that the government would reconstruct the building under special norms. That seems to have been lip-service, leaving the hapless residents in the lurch.
The residents, who spent initial months in courts to deny bail to Shitap, realised in May 2018 through RTI documents that Siddhi Sai’s original plot — city survey no 128 (c) — was altered in an amalgamation and sub division exercise way back in 2005. It surfaced that from the original 490 sq m, their plot area had shrunk to 357 sq m when the subdivision was carried out in 2005.
The residents then lodged a complaint with the then suburban collector Sachin Kurve, alleging that the subdivision was carried out based on an application by Sanyam Realtors, which is developing a luxury high rise bang opposite the building. The developer has stoutly denied the allegations. Without going into the allegations, in August 2018, the resident collector asked the City Survey Office to remeasure plot cs no 128.
“The City Survey office in its report has accepted that there was an error in 2005 while carrying out the subdivision of the plot. In the remeasurement, which took place on September 25, 2018, the society’s plot area increased from 357 sq m to 448 sq m, still 42 sq m short of the original area,” Birendrakumar Singh, a resident spearheading the society’s legal fight, told HT. The report has been submitted to the superintendent of Land Records, Bandra.
It was a task to even have the increased area included on their property card, for which they had to first get the 2005 orders cancelled. “In August 2019, we met BJP’s minister of state for urban development, Yogesh Sagar, who asked us to meet the suburban collector and get the 2005 orders cancelled. However, the then collector, who has requisite powers to cancel the illegal orders, did not do so, and instead asked us to file an appeal against the 2005 orders before the additional divisional commissioner, Konkan Region,” said Singh.
The appeal took a year to come up for hearing as Covid-19 pandemic hit Mumbai in March 2020. The society had sought the condonation of delay for filing the appeal against a 2005 order. However, the additional divisional commissioner rejected the application for condonation of delay on August 11, 2020.
“The order said that our society had failed to provide supportive reasons for the delay from August 30, 2018, when the collector directed us to file an appeal, and October 16, 2019, when the appeal was actually filed. The order has not taken cognizance of the city survey report which accepted that the Siddhi Sai Society was never informed about the amalgamation and subdivision of plot CS no 128 in 2005. The report also said the remeasurement was carried out in 2018 and the area has increased,” said Singh.
With the divisional commissioner’s office refusing to condone the delay in filing the appeal, the residents then filed a revision application before the state revenue minister in October 2020, challenging the August 11, 2020, order of the additional divisional commissioner, Konkan. However, with Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government busy tackling the pandemic, state revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat heard the matter only in April 2022 and it was closed for final orders. Before the final order could be issued, the MVA government was rocked by the vertical split in the Shiv Sena, leading to its collapse.
Now, the Siddhi Sai residents have pinned their hopes on the Shinde-Fadnavis government to give them justice. “Chief minister Eknath Shinde handles the urban development portfolio, while deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis handles the housing ministry. They have promised a lokabhimukh (people-oriented) government. It is our humble appeal to both of them to take necessary steps to allow us to get our rightful homes,” said Ramakant Tripathi, another resident who had to cough up EMIs for the flat he purchased in the building which collapsed before he could move in.