New Delhi, Jul 30 The Supreme Court has directed that no work order be issued till August 13 for the Maharashtra government's cluster redevelopment project on total 132 acres of land in Mumbai.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing a petition filed by the MIG Adarsh Nagar Co-operative Society against the July 2 order of the Bombay High Court dismissing a batch of petitions challenging “a massive redevelopment exercise” undertaken by Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA).
“List on August 13, 2026... Till then, the work order shall not be issued,” the bench said in its order passed on Wednesday.
The bench directed the respondents, including the state of Maharashtra, to file their counter-affidavits within one week. The petitioner society has been granted another week thereafter to file its rejoinder.
The MHADA project envisages “a massive redevelopment exercise” of the Adarsh Nagar layout of around 34.33 acres in Worli and an integrated redevelopment of Bandra reclamation layout of around 98.27 acres.
The petitioners, holding 99-year leases, had argued before the Bombay High Court that MHADA’s move to compulsorily pool their independent plots into a giant cluster through a third-party construction & development agency was a violation of their proprietary rights.
In its order, the high court noted the state government’s stand that redevelopment schemes are in the larger public interest as it would streamline amenities, create additional housing stock for general use and provide better accommodations for the existing occupiers.
The order had said that in a redevelopment of such magnitude by a “responsible agency” like MHADA, the court would be loath to come in the way of redevelopment concerning the larger public interest merely because the rights of a limited number of individuals could be affected.
“The redevelopment concerns as many as 5,000 housing societies. Though the writ petitions are filed at the instance of some of the petitioner societies, we are satisfied that the interest of the bona fide occupants of all these societies has been safeguarded, and any interference in the redevelopment process would affect the larger body of occupants and the residents in the layout,” the order had said.
