Pulling up the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) near Pune for allowing more than 66,000 illegal structures to come up in the town, the Bombay high court warned that the civic chief would be held responsible if such state of affairs continued in the future. While hearing a petition, a division bench of Justice Dhananjaya Chandrachud and Mahesh Sonak observed, “It is an alarming state of affairs in the jurisdiction of the municipality and corrective measures should be undertaken forthwith.” The court was informed by the civic body that out of the 66,324 illegal structures, only 225 had been demolished so far. Apart from this, around 861 FIRs had been filed against those who had built illegal structures. For the rest, the corporation had submitted a proposal to the state to regularise them. The court was, however, of the view that because action wasn’t taken against illegal structures, and the corporation, in most cases, had proposed to the state to regularise them, it was only going to encourage illegal structures to come up in the town. The petitioner, Jaishree Dange, alleged that a portion of New Millennium School was built illegally on the banks of Pawna River. A garage and a restaurant were also built adjacent to the school and these structures resulted in the pollution of the river, which is a source of drinking water in the region. Ms Dange also alleged in her petition that no action had been taken against the illegal portion of the school because its former chairman Laxmanrao Jagtap was a local MLA. The municipal corporation, in an RTI reply, had admitted that a portion of the school was illegal. The school management assured the court that it would remove the illegal construction before May 31, 2014, and restore the building to its original structure.
