Maharashtra Government’s misfortunes at the hands of India’s legal system don’t seem to come to an end anytime soon. In a setback to the Uddhav Thackeray Government, the Bombay High Court has paused the transfer of 102 acres of land Kanjumarg to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). This land was intended for carrying out work towards the metro rail project’s car shed.
Uddhav Thackeray had decided to transfer to the construction of the car shed to Kanjurmag from Aarey. However, the High Court has put an effective stop to those plans by putting a stay on the construction and asking the Maharashtra Government to wait for its orders.
This comes after the plea filed by the Central Government, who claimed ownership of the portion of land in question. According to the centre, the land belonged to its salt department.
The decision to put the stay on the construction had been taken after the division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni granted the collector a chance to withdraw his order of October 1 which allotted the land under dispute. But since that didn’t happen, the court said aside from the collector’s order.
In a huge setback for the Uddhav Thackery Government, the court said, “We cannot allow the collector’s order of October 1, 2020, to continue. The order has to go. We are admitting the petition and granting relief as sought by the petitioner (Union government) in prayer clauses ‘h’ and ‘I’.”
According to prayer clause ‘h’, the central government had sought the court to stay the operation of the collector’s order of October 1 which transferred possession of 102 acres of land to MMRDA for construction of the metro car shed.
Continuing ahead, as per prayer clause ‘I’, the Centre had sought an order from the court restraining the MMRDA from carrying out any construction work on the said land.
This comes after a series of defeats the Maha Vikas Aghadi Government of Maharashtra is facing in the legal redressal institutions. Recently, their actions of hounding journalists and actors on baseless grounds to suppress criticism had been effectively ended by the intervention of the court. First, recognising that the “instrumentality of the State is being weaponised for using the force of criminal law,” the Supreme Court had granted bail to Arnab Goswami. Then, deeming the demolition of Kangana Ranaut’s office by the city’s civic body “is nothing but malice in law”, the High Court had held the said demolition as illegal and ordered her to get damages.
Yet again, in another embarrassment to the state leadership, the Bombay High Court has decided to stay the collector’s order and restrained the DMRCL from carrying out its operations on the land till the plea is finally heard.