MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by the Danda Koli Masemari Vyavasayik Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit (DKMVSSM), challenging a committee’s report on the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme for Koli housing being implemented on government land at Khar Danda. The report said that the SRA project was not encroaching on the fishers’ traditional fish-drying land as claimed by the latter.
Last year, the DKMVSSM and another fisher welfare society, the Danda Koli Samaj, had approached the high court, challenging an order passed by the SRA in May 2022, which declared as a slum a plot of land that local fishers have used for generations to dry fish. The petitioners also sought directions for the removal of encroachments on the land.
The petition stated that while in 2008, the BMC reserved the land for the local fishing community, a map released in 2018 failed to mark the fish-drying areas as originally recorded. The issue intensified after Khar Danda Koliwada fishers found that the declaration of the land as a slum was contrary to the provisions of the Slum Act, as no proper demarcation was carried out.
The petitioners stated that the inclusion of the reserved land in a slum rehab scheme undermined the long-standing rights and livelihood of the Khar Danda Koliwada fishers. It highlighted that the SRA order also sought to de-reserve the fish-drying area without following the provisions and due procedure under the MRTP Act and the Development Control rules.
On December 17 last year, Justices G S Kulkarni and Aarti Sathe directed the formation of a committee of the urban development department and SRA, ordering them to visit the site and issue appropriate orders. The bench directed the status quo to be maintained on the disputed land and ordered the authorities not to take any coercive action till the committee took an appropriate decision.
On February 23 this year, the committee concluded that an area of 3,422.85 sq m had already been declared a slum area in May 2022 under the Maharashtra Slum Areas Act, while recording that nearly 26,000 sq m of land still remained available for traditional fishing activities. It recommended that the yard be properly developed and permitted the authorities to proceed with the ongoing slum rehabilitation schemes.
On Monday, a division bench of Justices M S Karnik and S M Modak dismissed the petition, saying that such issues could not be adjudicated by the high court and needed to be examined by a competent civil court. The high court granted the petitioners’ request to stay the order to enable them to seek further legal remedies, effectively extending the earlier status quo on the land for a further three weeks.