Bungalow row: HC seeks response of Mumbai civic body, Narayan Rane on maintainability of fresh application

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the city civic body and a real estate company associated with Union minister Narayan Rane to convince the court that the second application for regularising illegal portions of his bungalow is ''maintainable''.

A bench led by Justice RD Dhanuka posed a set of oral queries to the counsels for Kalka Real Estates and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) asking them to ''come prepared with answers'' on July 25, the next date of hearing in the case.

Notably, another bench led by Justice Dhanuka on June 22 dismissed a plea filed by Rane challenging the BMC's refusal to regularise portions of his eight-floor Juhu residence.

Rane had claimed the civic body, controlled by Shiv Sena, had rejected his regularisation application out of political vendetta.

The BMC had argued that the minister had flouted sanction plans and misused the Floor Space Index (FSI) for the bungalow.

The HC had refused relief to Rane saying when ''prima facie'' the construction was unauthorized, the question of political vendetta did not arise.

On Tuesday, Kalka Real Estates' advocate Shardul Singh told the HC that they filed a fresh application though the previous one was rejected by the BMC and the rejection was upheld by the HC. Singh argued that Rane is now seeking that a smaller portion of his bungalow is regularised and that his plea was taking recourse to provisions of the state's 2024 Development Plan for such relief.

''However, the BMC had said that it could not consider the second application without an order of the high court,'' Singh told the bench on Tuesday. He requested the high court to direct the BMC to consider the new application as per the law.

BMC's senior counsel Anil Sakhre told the bench that the civic body was yet to go through the second regularisation application and ''apply its mind'' to it.

The high court then asked how an application once rejected, could be approved by the civic body.

''Show us that this second application is maintainable,'' the bench said.