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Informist, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – The Bombay High Court has pulled up the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. for failing to hand over the possession of leased lands to Bikaner Sweets & Namkin NX-2 and Siddhilaxmi Enclave Pvt. Ltd. for developing hotels at the Trans Thane Creek Industrial Area in Mahape. The high court directed Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. to execute the lease agreements with Bikaner Sweets and Siddhilaxmi Enclave within six weeks and hand over physical possession of the allotted lands to them.

 

"... MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp.) has made allotments, its allotment letters contain stipulations and deadlines for activity to be undertaken by the allottee, and yet, despite pocketing the money payable by the allottees, the MIDC has refrained from moving the process forward, evidently on the basis of political interference through a process unknown to law," the court said. 

 

The case has its genesis from Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. allotting land to Bikaner Sweets and Siddhilaxmi Enclave in 2021 for developing hotels in Trans Thane Creek Industrial Area. Despite the allotment and full payment, the state government entity refrained from granting the possession of land to the companies. 

 

The then Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde had in a meeting on Jul. 4, 2023 issued instructions to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. not to alienate any land along the service road in the Trans Thane Creek Industrial Area even if the land has already been allotted. The reason for the instructions was said to be potential vehicular accidents in the area. Defending itself in court, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. said that they got a written binding "direction" from the state government to keep further processing of the two leases on hold. 

 

In the course of the hearing, the state government said that no policy direction has been issued by it to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. under Section 18 of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. Act. Section 18 states that the state government may issue general or special directions to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. on such matters of policy as it may think necessary or expedient for carrying out the purposes of the Act. Directions under Section 18 were meant for policy matters and not relating to specific projects and specific allotments of land, the court said.

 

The high court said the government's instructions were not only ambiguous in terms of dealing with pre-existing and accrued rights, but also did not contain any semblance of a reasoned articulation of why such pre-existing rights and pre-approved projects are to be interfered with. "The facts collectively paint a vivid picture of interference with the functioning of the MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp.), in the name of issuance of policy directions, which we are clearly informed, have never been issued," the court said. The written contents of the Jan. 4 instructions, "ex facie" do not carry the character of a policy direction, and they are evidently directions on the manner of handling projects, the court said.

 

The bench of Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan and Justice B.P. Colabawalla said it was the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. that planned the development in that region and the actual development has to conform to the approved plan. "If planned development can be arbitrarily interfered with, and that too at the purported behest of a local municipal body, there would be no sanctity to the process of planned development," the bench said.

 

Even if the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp. was mistakenly of the view that the Jan. 4 instruction was a policy direction, it was required to follow as a binding direction. It begs the question as to why it did not act between 2021 to January 2024, the court said. "One wonders how the MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corp.) felt entitled to sit on the monies received throughout this period," the court said. Even after January 2024, there is not a semblance of an effort to communicate to the allottees that it was in receipt of a binding policy direction, it added. "Such conduct is inexplicable, and points to the manner in which development has been approached in the state of Maharashtra, at least in these two cases," the court said.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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