The Supreme Court has stayed the Bombay high court’s order, directing the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) to demolish the unauthorised portions at Seven Eleven Hotel, which is owned by former BJP MLA Narendra Mehta.
A division bench of justice Dinesh Mahashwari and justice Tarun Sharma on Monday issued notices to the respondents on a special leave petition filed by Seven Eleven Hotels Limited.
Upholding the contentions in a public interest litigation petition that the hotel was constructed in a no-development zone but had got additional floor space index (FSI) by fraudulently paying the premium, the HC had on September 29 directed the MBMC to pull down within two months the excess portions – over and above the permissible FSI of 0.2.
The petitioner had also claimed that the grant of an extra FSI of 0.8 on payment of premium was not permissible since the condition – that the plot should be abutting a highway – was never met. The structure was neither close to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway or the Ghodbunder state highway.
A division bench of HC chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice M S Karnik had said that wrong clauses of the development control regulations (DCR) were taken into consideration and clauses like DCR 57, which imposed restrictions on constructions in no-development zones, were overlooked while permitting the excess portions to be built.
“In the present case, what the town planning department [of the state government] and the corporation have done, is to apply DCR 51[7][vii] to a hotel to be constructed in a no-development zone. Regulation 51 deals with a completely different and separate land use i.e. residential with shop line [in R-2 zone]. While granting permission to the company in respect of a hotel to be constructed in the no-development zone, the rigours of DCR 57[xiii] are overlooked,” the bench had said.
It had added that “the object of regulation 57 cannot be stultified by permitting something which goes beyond the restrictions imposed for development activities permissible in the no-development zone. The language of regulation 57 read with clause [xiii] thereunder leaves no manner of doubt that the restrictions are to be strictly construed, for any other interpretation would defeat the object of the regulation”.
Seven Eleven Hotels had, however, claimed that the grant of excess FSI was permissible under the latest unified development control and promotion regulations (UDCR), applicable to all municipal corporations across Maharashtra, except Mumbai. The latest UDCR came into force in December 2020 which permitted FSI of 1 for construction of star-graded hotels like Seven Eleven.
The HC had rejected the contention, saying the permissions were granted much before the UDCR was implemented.