SC Paves Way for Redevelopment of 44-Acre BKC Slum Linked With Baba Siddique Murder

With the Supreme Court rejecting a special leave petition filed by residents of Bharat Ekta Society, decks have been cleared for developers to get Bandra Kurla Complex's Bharat Nagar, spread over 44 acres, vacated.

- Ateeq Shaikh

MUMBAI:

The apex court's judgment in the case of Mansoor Ali Farida Irshad Ali and others versus the tahsildar-1, special cell has far-reaching repercussions as it touches upon a technical and little-known topic known as "censused slums". A censused slum is located on land owned by the government, a government undertaking, or a corporation that has been surveyed, enumerated, and recorded by the land-owning authority. A notified slum, on the other hand, refers to encroachment on private land that has been notified as a slum under the Slum Act.

Residents of Bharat Ekta Society contended that since their locality had not been notified as a slum area, it could not be razed and taken up for redevelopment. But the bench of justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Krishnan Vinod Chandran ruled that their contention was totally misconceived as the project related to a "censused slum" which was scheduled for redevelopment as per regulation 33(10) of development control rules (DCR).