Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday stayed the notice issued last December by BMC to petrol pump owners in the city that they will have to keep their toilets open to the public under the Centre’s Swachch Bharat Mission. 

The court also directed the BMC to remove signboards it had erected near 12 petrol pumps, appealing the public to use toilets free of cost. The court said that even if the order was under the Swachch Bharat Mission, it had to be in accordance with the law. “Which law can allow you to convert private toilets into public toilets,” the court asked.

A division bench of justice Abhay Oka and justice R.I. Chagala was hearing a petition filed by city-based petrol pump owners’ associations and 12 private owners, challenging the circular issued by the BMC on December 22 last year, directing petrol pump owners to keep the toilets of their respective petrol pumps open to the public.  to the petition, neither the BMC Act nor any other act said that petrol pump owners had to allow the public to use their private toilets free of cost.

The bench on Wednesday provided relief to the petitioners – the 12 petrol pump owners and members of the Petrol Dealers’ Association, and made it clear that the petitioners will have to give an undertaking that they will permit members of the general public to use such toilets in cases of emergency. The bench granted all other affected petrol pump owners the liberty to approach the court if and when they sought the same relief. There are about 300 petrol pumps in the city.

The court said that it was the BMC’s obligation to construct toilets in the city instead of converting private toilets into public ones. The court questioned the BMC under which act or source of power was the civic body allowed to claim toilets inside private petrol pumps to be public toilets.