Bombay High Court slams lack of cops for demolition squad

Mumbai: The Bombay high court came down heavily on the state government for not providing a dedicated team of policemen to the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC)’s demolition squad when they pull down illegal structures. The HC directed the government to implement the ‘government resolution’ (GR) issued last year for the same. The court told the government to file a compliance report within a month.

The division bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka issued these directions while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed through advocate Datta Mane by activist Rajeev Mishra and Mayura Maru.

The HC on September 23, 2015 had directed CIDCO and MIDC to raze illegal structures in Digha. The NMMC, CIDCO and MIDC officials had told the court that it would need police protection to demolish illegal structures following which the state had issued a GR on May 20, 2015 according to which it was supposed to create a dedicated police team to provide protection to demolition squad.

However on Monday it told the court that the GR had not been implemented so far.  

Hence, the request for police protection to carry out demolition is sometimes rejected, thereby creating a hurdle in demolition of illegal structures.

As per affidavit filed by NMMC deputy commissioner Ainash Gaikwad, 98 requests were made seeking police protection to carry out demolition of illegal structures but only 21 were approved.

The requests were turned down due to unavailability of policemen.

The court noted that as per data obtained by petitioner under RTI there currently there are around 406 illegal multi storied structures in the jurisdiction of NMMC.