BMC demolishes eatery structure

Following a long-standing legal tussle between owners of a South Mumbai eatery and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over an illegal extension, the civic body has now demolished a part of the restaurant yet again on Wednesday.

Last month, the BMC demolished a section of the Salt Water Cafe in Churchgate, after first issuing it a notice. The notice gave the restaurant owners a period of 48 hours to restore it to its original plan.

The owners of Salt Water Cafe then moved the court bringing a stay on the demolition. Simultaneously, the civic body began to demolish a portion of the café. Following this, the owners moved a contempt petition in the high court on July 5, drawing its attention to the demolition, despite the stay order. The court then directed the BMC to reconstruct the entire demolished portion at its expense, within a period of 10 days.

The BMC started the construction work, even as a parallel case with Salt Water Cafe was running in the city civil court, regarding the legality of the said portion.

As the verdict in this case was in favour of the civic body, it halted reconstruction after the 10 days were up. The owners then moved another contempt petition in the high court on July 18, pointing out that the civic body had not completed the reconstruction at the end of 10 days, despite court orders.

Assistant municipal commissioner of A ward, Kiran Dighavkar said, “The court pulled up the BMC stating that its orders must be followed, irrespective of the legality of the said portion. We then reconstructed the whole demolished portion.”

Later, following the city civil court’s verdict, which was in favour of the civic body, the A ward demolished the portion again on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a civic official who did not wish to comment on record said, “Technically, we are allowed to recover the monetary losses borne by the civic body during the demolition of an illegal construction, from the owner of the place. The BMC now plans to slap the owner with two notices, for recovering the cost accrued during the demolition.”

After Wednesday’s demolition, the owners of Salt Water Cafe approached the high court again, However, it ruled in favour of BMC and supported the demolition.