Supreme Court refuses extension to Campa Cola residents

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to extend the deadline for Campa Cola residents in Mumbai to vacate their flats. The BMC will now have to proceed to evict and demolish the buildings, senior advocate Pallav Sisodia, who appeared for the BMC, said.

“The Supreme Court has given a judgement. How can the BMC or the commissioner sit on judgment on it? We have to implement the order ,” he said.

The residents’ cause was represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi. But a bench comprising Justices Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya and Ranjan Gogoi refused to consider an extension of the deadline, which is May 31, 2014. The original bench, which had passed the eviction order, had gone back on its original order and asked the state to consider any proposal that would legalise these flats, but no scheme has been worked out yet. Sisodia said that there was no such proposal and the BMC would begin its eviction by the deadline.

“If we have to go, we have to go. But, we are not going to give up without a major fight. We’ve been given a raw deal,” said Vidya Srinivas, a resident of Campa Cola Compound, while reacting to the ruling.

The housing complex in South Mumbai's upmarket Worli locality, houses seven high-rise apartment towers built in the ’80s. The demolition of these apartments illegally built above the permitted five floors has been pending since April 2013, as residents have managed to get extensions from courts and have been buying time to find alternative accommodation.

In November, even as civic authority officials moved in to demolish the illegal structures, the court had suspended the demolition of the around 100 flats of the complex till further orders.

With more than 50,000 illegal structures in Mumbai, Campa Cola Compound can well be a precedent, and therefore almost all political parties have so far lent their support to these residents.