Building too close to Mumbai naval base: HC stays sale of flats

The Bombay high court on Thursday ordered an interim stay on further sale of flats in an 18-storey building named Harsiddhi at Worli in Mumbai as the Indian Navy has raised it objections to the project.

The Navy has claimed that the builders had not obtained the no-objection certificate from the Western Command of the Navy before starting the constructing of the building.

Naval counsel informed the division bench of Justice D K Deshmukh and N D Deshpande that the building was just 57 meters away from its naval base INS Trata which houses sensitive missiles and launchers.

"According to the rules laid down by the state government, a NOC has to be procured from the Navy for any construction within 300 metres of the base," said advocate Dinesh Shah appearing for the Navy.

Shah accused the developers and the Slum Redevelopment Authority of conniving with some powerful persons for commencement of construction despite the lack of NOC from Navy.

Shah told the court that the building has an unrestricted view of the naval base and its activities in the area, which impedes their normal functioning.

Since the next hearing is two weeks away the court directed to maintain status quo till then and thereby putting any further sale of flats in the building on hold. The high court has asked the builder to submit a list of all the present occupants in the building to the court.

Interestingly, one of the residents of the Harsiddhi happens to be IPS officer turned lawyer Y P Singh. It was Singh who had obtained information under Right To Information application in the Adarsh case that revealed how the promoters had always maintained that the flats were meant for defense personnel.

A defence official said that though there were several buildings in the vicinity of INS Trata objection was specifically raised against Harsiddhi as the missile battery stood exposed to the towering building.

"There are different rules for operational and administrative areas. In operational areas we are stringent because like in INS Trata we have a missile battery there, so we have to be more stringent and Harsiddhi is near the missile battery while the other buildings are near the administrative areas," said the official on condition of anonymity.