Mumbai mill owners move SC on land use

Led by the National Textiles Corporation, a handful of textile mills have moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay high court's order halting the development of mills' properties in the city.

A joint petition was filed by NTC and other private mills including Bombay Dyeing, Ruby Mills, Hindustan Mills, and trade union Rashtriya Mazdoor Sangh.

The apex court on April 8 had issued a notice on the petition against the Bombay high court order, which restrained Bombay Municipal Corporation from approving further permissions for development of land owned by the mills till April 20.

A Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Santosh Hegde and S B Sinha will hear the case on April 18. The mills, which approached the Supreme Court had schemes already approved for the development of their properties under the Impugned Development Control Regulation 58 of 2001.

They said that they were "adversely affected by the Bombay high court's order as it virtually brings the development process to a stand still".

A battery of legal counsels -- Mukul Rohtagi appearing for NTC, F S Nariman for Bombay Dyeing, Arun Jaitely for Hindustan Mills and Soli Sorabjee for Ruby Mills --represented the mill owners.

Harish Salve has accepted the notice on behalf of the Bombay Environmental Action group, an NGO fighting a public interest litigation on the issue.

In his submission, Nariman said Bombay Dyeing received approval for development of its properties in 2003.

The company had subsequently incurred liabilities of around Rs 900 crore (Rs 9 billion). This includes payment in relation to a voluntary retirement scheme to over 3,000 workers, repayment of loans taken from financial institutions and also settling third party rights.