"Illegal constructions" at actor Kangana Ranaut’s office at Pali Hill in Mumbai were demolished by BMC. (Express photo)The Bombay High Court Friday asked the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) if the demolished structures at actor Kangana Ranaut’s bungalow were under construction or if they existed earlier. It questioned the BMC whether it had acted with the same swiftness in demolishing other unauthorised structures in the city.
The court also asked BMC as to why it had not invoked section 351 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act, which prescribes giving sufficient notice and time to the owner to respond as to the “completed unauthorised work”, whereas the civic body had invoked section 354 issuing “stop-work” notice for “on-going work”.
The question was asked after the court was informed by Ranaut’s lawyer that there was no ongoing work in the premise, which was allegedly detected and inspected by the BMC’s mukadam (supervisor) and executive engineer on September 5 and 7, respectively, and yet section 354 (A) of the law, which pertains to ongoing work, was invoked.
The court then asked BMC to produce the phone of the mukadam who detected the alleged illegal alterations at Ranaut’s Bandra office on September 5 to check the photographs based on which the inspection of the bungalow was prompted on September 7.
On Thursday, the court had said it “cannot leave Ranaut’s Bandra office to remain in a partly demolished state during the monsoon”.
On Friday, a division bench of Justice S J Kathawalla and Justice R I Chagla, which began the hearing on the actor’s plea, was told by senior counsel Birendra Saraf and advocate Rizwan Siddiquee that BMC’s action was malafide and arbitrary and had ignored every provisions of the law since there was no “ongoing work”.
Saraf said that alleged alterations and additions mentioned in the BMC notice were completed in 2019 and the same could be proved by the photographs of pooja held by the actor in the bungalow in January this year.
Kangna Ranaut in Chandigarh amid high security on September 9, 2020. (Express Photo: Jasbir Malhi)
Saraf said that since Ranaut was a “public-spirited person” and had taken to social media to criticise the government on its handling of various issues, she was targeted by Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut. “My client had differences with people in power and will continue to do that. That got very strong reactions. She had views on administration and state government of the day. She was in loggerheads with the Maharashtra government, especially Shiv Sena. Timings of reactions given (by Shiv Sena) and action by BMC clearly supports her claim that action suffers with malice in law,” Saraf argued.
He said that there were various contradictions and discrepancies in BMC’s affidavits filed in response to the actor’s plea and it should be asked to provide details of detection, inspection and stop-work notice and produce evidence of actual work going on in the property.
However, BMC, through senior advocate Aspi Chinoy and advocate Joel Carlos submitted surrejoinder to Kangana’s rejoinder and said that her “new categorical denial” of having carried out illegal alterations was “belated” and had not been raised during earlier responses. Chinoy said that while only demolished toilets were “open to sky” and were exposed to rains, the rest of the demolitions were internal.
After hearing submissions and perusing documents submitted by Ranaut and BMC, the court observed that advocate Pradeep Thorat’s client (Sanjay Raut), who was made a party to the case, had “correctly described” the demolition. The court was referring to ‘Ukhaad diya’ caption as reported on September 10 in Sena mouthpiece Saamana.
The bench sought responses from BMC on its queries and allegations made by the petitioner and posted further hearing to September 28 morning. The HC will hear Ranaut’s remaining arguments along with BMC’s response to the same on Monday.
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