Bombay HC directives cast a shadow on success of amnesty scheme in Pune

Owners’ poor response and the Bombay high court’s directives on the changes made in the MRTP Act have cast a shadow on the success of the amnesty scheme for regularizing illegal constructions in the city. There has been a poor response to the scheme despite the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) extending the deadline for filing applications to regularize illegal structures. Earlier this month, the division bench of Justice A S Oka and Justice A K Menon, while hearing the petitions against the changes in the MRTP Act, directed the planning authorities to take strict action against illegal constructions and “show zero tolerance to illegal constructions”. According to the PMC officials, the court directives have put restrictions on compounding the unauthorized constructions under this scheme. “Now, we shall have to do the compounding according to the old method. Only those properties, which can comply 100% to the development control rules, can be compounded,” said a senior official of PMC. Prashant Waghmare, the city engineer of PMC, said, “Now, the civic body will wait for the state directives or changes the state suggests following the court order,” he said. The government had earlier decided to give relief to unauthorized constructions built before 2015 and made changes in the MRTP Act. But the HC stated that Section 52A of the MRTP Act should be read down to mean that non-obstante clause in Subsection (1) of Section 52A does not enable the authorities to compound unauthorized developments. “Hence ... unauthorized development contrary to the provisions of the development /regional plans under the MRTP Act and the development control regulations framed under the MRTP Act shall not be declared as a compounded structure,” the order stated.