Tenants can rebuild demolished buildings without the permission of their landlords under section 499 of the Mumbai Municipality Corporation Act, the Bombay High Court (HC) has ruled. They also have the right to demand cost recovery from the landlord if the latter fails to come up with a redevelopment plan within a year of the demolition, it added while delivering its judgement in the Chandralok People Welfare Association versus State of Maharashtra case.
However, this does not translate into tenants assuming ownership rights in the property, and they remain only a leaseholder, the two-judge Bench clarified in its order dated October 18, 2023.
“The second sentence of Section 499(6) preserves the rights of the owners of the property and keeps the tenants as tenants. This is important because in the course of redevelopment, particularly under some provisions of the DCPR 2034, tenancies may be converted optionally to ownership. The statute does not give tenants the right to convert tenancy into ownership. What it does is to preserve the rights of tenants as tenants,” the HC said.
The court also maintained that tenants must arrange funds for the reconstruction activity on their own. “The association must make its own arrangements for financing the reconstruction. We have only affirmed their statutory right to reconstruction and the MCGM’s obligation to permit it without requiring the prior consent of the landlord.”
The High Court also said that civic bodies must demand landlord to submit redevelopment plans if buildings are demolished because of dilapidation.
“It seems to us to stand to reason that the MCGM can certainly demand from the property owner that the reconstruction or redevelopment be taken up in a stated time frame and if not the MCGM can cause steps to be taken under the MMC Act. Indeed, we believe that the MCGM must make such a demand. We reject out of hand any proposition that the MCGM does not have the power to compel or permit reconstruction at the instance of tenants affected by the bringing down of a tenanted building.”
The case pertains to a building constructed in 1965. Having reached a state that made it unfit for living, the building was vacated in July 2019 and demolished later that year. Since no arrangements have been made by the landlord so far to reconstruct the building, the tenants formed the Chandralok People Welfare Association and approached the court seeking directions against the owner, the landlord and the civic body.
| Got any questions or point of view on our article? We would love to hear from you. Write to our Editor-in-Chief Jhumur Ghosh at jhumur.ghosh1@housing.com |
