Supreme Court asks Bombay HC to conduct performance audit of 1971 Maharashtra law on slum development

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the Bombay High Court to conduct a performance audit of a 1971 Maharashtra law on slum redevelopment, after noting its propensity and proclivity to generate litigation as worrisome.

A bench of Justices P S Narasimha and Aravind Kumar pointed out over 1,600 cases are pending in the high court with regard to the law and the welfare legislation for poor is grid-locked.

The court asked the chief justice of the high court to set up a bench to "initiate suo motu proceedings" to review the working of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 to identify the problems faced in its implementation.

The court pointed out the Executive branch has a constitutional duty to ensure that the purpose and object of a statute is accomplished and the judiciary does not review executive and legislative actions, but only nudges and provides impetus to systemic reforms.

The court issued its directions while dismissing an appeal of 'Yash Developers' against the high court verdict, which upheld cancellation of a slum-redevelopment project granted in its favour in 2003 for developing a slum in Borivali area of Mumbai.

The court also imposed a cost of Rs one lakh on the appellant as there were more than 16 years of delay in executing the project.

The bench referred to the National Judicial Data Grid data which revealed that a total of 1612 cases, involving disputes arising under the Act, are pending before the high court.

"Of these, 135 cases are more than 10 years old. In the last 20 years, 4488 cases have been filed and disposed of under the said Act. Latest data from the Bombay HC reveal that about 923 cases on the Appellate side and 738 on the Original Side are pending adjudication," it pointed out.

"The Act is a beneficial legislation, intended to materialise the constitutional assurance of dignity of the individual by providing basic housing, so integral to human life... There seems to be a problem with the statutory framework for realising the purpose and object of the statute," the bench said.

The court noticed that the statutory scheme is problematic on several aspects including identification and declaration of land as a slum, identification of slum dwellers, selection of a developer, apportionment of the slum land between redevelopment area and sale area.

The court said these problems, arising out of the statutory scheme and policy framework, should have come under review by the Maharashtra government.

The executive has a constitutional duty to ensure that the purpose and object of a law is accomplished while implementing it, it added.