MUMBAI: More than 100 families residing on the footpath outside the Beaumont HFSI Pre-Primary School and the Podar School in Powai have moved the Bombay High Court, seeking a recall of the court’s February 13 order directing Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to remove their hutments and withdraw essential services in the area.
In the interim application filed on February 26 through senior advocate Prakash Ambedkar and advocate Hitendra Gandhi, the petitioners said they were not “new encroachers”, but displaced residents of Jai Bhim Nagar whose tenements had been razed by the BMC in June 2024.
The 103 families party to the interim application said they were lawful occupants of hutments outside the two schools, and claimed that they fell within the protective ambit of various policies, government resolutions, and welfare schemes framed by the state government for protection and rehabilitation of hutment dwellers and slum occupants.
The Beaumont HFSI Pre-Primary School in Hiranandani Gardens had moved the high court over the alleged encroachment on December 22, 2025. The hutments, which were first noticed in June 2024, had drastically reduced the usable road width and completely blocked the footpaths, compelling pedestrians including young students to walk on the road, the school said. It also claimed that the BMC had failed to take any action against the encroachers despite several complaints till November 2025.
On February 13, a division bench of justices Ravindra V Ghuge and Abhay J Mantri directed the BMC to come up with a plan to remove the encroachments within 60 days. The judges also directed the civic body to remove mobile toilets and water tankers used by the hutment dwellers within 48 hours.
Aggrieved by the order, the 103 families moved the court on February 26, claiming they were former residents of Jai Bhim Nagar. Their earlier tenements were demolished in June 2024 in violation of binding executive safeguards, leaving them homeless and vulnerable overnight, the applicants said. While the issue was pending before the high court, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was also probing the matter, they stated.
The applicants clarified that based on this factual setting, if the February 13 order was implemented mechanically without them being heard, it would risk adjudication on an incomplete factual foundation and may result in irreversible civil consequences to persons whose displacement and legal status are already part of judicial and statutory record.
The applicants denied allegations of their hutments obstructing pedestrians, and claimed that withdrawal of basic facilities such as mobile toilets and tankers following the February 13 order had inconvenienced them greatly. The survival and safety of women, children, senior citizens and persons suffering from illness and disability were intrinsically dependent on continuity of shelter and access to minimum civic amenities, the interim application said.
“Any coercive removal or withdrawal of basic facilities would render them destitute and exposed to conditions incompatible with human dignity and constitutional protection,” the application stated.
The residents urged the court to consider passing a direction that no coercive action will be taken without hearing them. They also sought permission to file affidavits and documents before any further directions were issued by the court, affecting their shelter, possession, or access to basic amenities.