Mumbai: Bombay High Court observed that ‘horse trading on public lands is an open affair’, saying some slum dwellers cannot hold a slum rehabilitation authority (SRA) project to ransom. HC said State govt and public bodies must actively try and undertake redevelopment projects on their own land.The HC ruled against enforcing a Feb 2026 directive of the SRA chief to remove one builder – Ruparel Buildcon – as developer of a large Chembur project after substantial progress already made in the project. The land is a large 16-acre sprawl. The slum federation comprises 33 slum societies. The builder said his appointment had resulted from a consent from a slum federation and consent terms from previous litigation.Some of these slum societies denied giving their consent to the project with a chequered history with builders earlier appointed. The builder, Ruparel Buildcon, had moved the HC to challenge a February order by SRA to remove him. For any of the slum dwellers or their societies to contend that the agreement entered into between the parties to the consent terms is of no consequence or redundant and not enforceable by the SRA is “quite untenable”, the HC concluded.But the HC also said in a writ petition it could not decide if there was “real dissent” by some slum dwellers and directed that it was open to these slum occupants to approach the Chief Executive Officer, SRA under the Slum Act provisions if they intend to challenge the builder’s appointment.The legal battles are usually due to commercial interests of builders who back different groups of slum dwellers. State or public bodies as landowners “remain mute spectators, being least bothered about their own land, admittedly a public largesse and which is encroached,” HC said, adding, “On such public lands vested interests become active, wheeling and dealing, by asserting some rights, with the state authorities nowhere in the scene, when such horse trading of public lands is an open affair.”The HC also directed that the state should provide for proper compensation to Ruparel Buildcon for the large amounts he spent so far, with a commercial rate of interest, should the SRA CEO decide to remove him on such representation.Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale in their Sept 29 judgement said, “When it concerns redevelopment of slums, on public lands and in the present case, a large chunk of govt land, it is not unusual and in fact manifest, that the implementation of the slum scheme, would not only be inordinately delayed, but also get embroiled in protracted litigation…”
