Bombay high court on Thursday stayed a third attempt in the last 12 years by the state and BMC to increase the height of buildings in the second row and beyond at Marine Drive to 58m, or around 15-storey, in the heritage precinct.
Churchgate residents petitioned HC with a public interest litigation (PIL) to intervene against the 2023 guidelines that said the first row could remain at five to six floors, but beyond that, special permissions for a 58m height could be granted to builders for redevelopment projects in the city’s most sought-after address.
Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar, who heard the matter, got testy with the state and BMC, asking how many times HC should step in to stay such a move. Last Sept, the state had sanctioned guidelines for granting “special permission to redevelopment projects in the Marine Drive precinct”.
The Queen’s Necklace would have a jagged skyline, ungainly and legally untenable, said the Federation of Churchgate Residents, Ashok Rao, Conservation Action Trust, Oval Cooperage Residents Association, and Nariman Point Churchgate Citizens Welfare Trust. The residents’ groups filed the PIL to challenge the Sept 2023 guidelines. Senior Counsel Aspi Chinoy, for the residents, informed HC that there were two former rounds of litigation when two earlier such guidelines to permit construction of buildings over 24m high were not allowed to be fructified by HC, and a challenge is pending in an appeal before the Supreme Court against a March 2014 judgment.Chinoy, seeking a stay on the guidelines, cited the 2014 HC judgment in a PIL filed in 2012 that challenged the originally issued guidelines allowing for higher floors on a purported ‘line of vision test’. The test essentially said that when standing at one end of the road on the seafront promenade, the first row was aligned, and the second row of buildings on Marine Drive could be seen.
The HC said during pendency of the SC appeal and the 2018 PIL before HC, similar guidelines could not have been issued by state or BMC. The HC directed that the 2023 guidelines not be acted on with the exception of the Vasant Sagar project, based on the SC order. The HC sought affidavits in reply by Nov 5 from state and BMC after hearing their lawyers Abhay Patki and Oorja Dhond, respectively.
