Bombay High Court On Monday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was directed to execute the formal transfer of a prime land parcel at Worli in central Mumbai to recognize Birla Group company Century Textiles and Industries Ltd as the absolute owner of the plot. can be given , Can be made and formalized. The said premises vest in the name of the company.
A division bench of Justice Shahrukh J Kathawalla and Justice Burgess P Colabawala on March 14 ruled on the company’s plea, which claimed that it had approached BMC on March 27, 2014, to execute the formal deed. And had written several letters to the authorities without any satisfactory response and hence a petition was filed in the High Court in December 2016.
The parcel of land of more than six acres at Worli (Lower Parel Division) currently houses a residential colony of the employees and employees of the company.
The Century Textiles and Industries, in 1918, applied to the Trustees for the Reformation of the City of Bombay for a scheme to provide housing for the poorer classes under the City of Bombay Reforms Act, 1898.
The said scheme enabled the employer to provide accommodation to the poor section of the employees.
The land and buildings covered under the scheme are leased to the employees for a period of 28 years and after the expiry of the lease, the ownership will be transferred to the company or the employer, provided there is no default during the period. lease duration.
However, Janak Dwarkadas, senior advocate for the petitioner company, submitted that the lease period of 28 years had expired on March 31, 1955, but the civic body had not yet transferred the ownership of the land in favor of the petitioner.
The company said that it had spent a huge amount in which it paid Rs 1.65 lakh to the Board of Improvement Trust, which was required for the acquisition of the said land and then Rs 39,000 was paid in January 1991 and in May 1927 , Rupee. 1.26 lakh was paid by the company to the board. ,
These amounts paid by the petitioner were in turn paid to the owners of these lands.
BMC’s senior advocate Joaquim F Rees opposed the petition calling it non-maintainable on grounds of delay and latch and said that there was complete inaction on the part of the petitioner from 1955 to 2016 and, therefore, the petition was not entertained. Needed. Go.
The court did not accept the submission of the BMC and allowed the petition, observing that the petitioner had sufficiently demonstrated his right to have formal transport to the said premises and observed that “it was unfortunate that due to speculative and irrelevant considerations”. for”, the BMC has stopped it. , Petitioner.