The Bombay High Court (HC) terminated the lease of salt pan land spread across 782 acres in Mulund, Bhandup and Kanjurmarg on Wednesday, May 8.
A single bench of Justice Sandeep Marne also directed the leaseholder to hand over the land to the salt commissioner.
This development came as the court dismissed a suit filed by Dadar resident Vikas Walawalkar, a sub-lessee of the salt pan land, seeking a declaration that he was entitled to a lease renewal for another 99 years. In 2005, he had filed the PIL shortly after the deputy salt commissioner terminated his lease for not using the entire land for salt manufacturing.
In a city like Mumbai, where land prices are among the highest in the country, permitting the use of 782 acres of land for salt manufacturing cannot be confused with creating any vested right in the land for the lessee.
The sub-lessee had also sought a declaration that he was entitled to lease renewal after it expired in October 2016, claiming that he could not manufacture salt on a large chunk of the land because of a situation beyond his control. He also claimed that due to a proliferation of slums, hutments and factories beyond the salt pans’ western boundary, sewage water and industrial effluents were discharged into the land.
It is pertinent to note that this order has paved a way for the widening of the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road. Earlier, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) could not take possession of the requisite land because of an interim order in the proceedings.
Share
Tweet
