Observing that it was the statutory duty of BMC, under the Municipal Corporation Act, to maintain roads, the high court directed the civic body to repair all roads in the city within reasonable time. The court direction came after independent municipal corporator from ward number 85, Shaikh Ilyas, filed a PIL in the high court, requesting it to direct BMC to repair the Tata Vasahat Marg at Bandra Bharat Nagar. Mr Ilyas’ earlier requests to BMC had fallen on deaf ears and the civic body had claimed that repair work was to be carried out by Mhada. When the corporator approached Mhada, he was told repair work was the responsibility of the SRA.

A HC bench of Justice Vidyasagar Kanade and Justice Swapna Joshi issued direction while hearing the PIL filed by Mr Ilyas. Advocate Yusuf Khan, along with A. Hussain, on behalf of Mr Ilyas, argued that despite being a municipal corporator, Mr Ilyas’ requests for road repair went unheard because the BMC said the road belonged to Mhada, which was supposed to repair it. Mhada in turn put the onus of repair on SRA.

Fed up of this blame game, Mr Ilyas decided to approach the high court. During hearing, senior counsel for BMC, Anil Sakhre, told the bench that the civic body was ready to improve and maintain the road if MMRDA, Mhada and SRA permitted the municipal corporation to recover development charges from the developer. Mhada and SRA agreed to this, implying that whenever any development project came up in the area, BMC would be allowed to collect pro-rata charges of the said road from those projects.

The HC in its order further observed, “In so far as the other roads are concerned, the corporation is under statutory obligation under section 61(m) r/w. 3(W), 3(X) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, to maintain and improve all public roads (public streets)”. The judges also said, “We hope and trust that the corporation shall repair all roads within a reasonable period of time and ensure that the situation which has occurred on account of heavy monsoon this year, does not occur in future.”