SUSME BUILDERS PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule. Returnable forthwith. Respondents waive service. By consent taken up for final hearing.

(2.) The petitioner-Company which is a developer was selected by the respondent-Co-operative Society in the year 1986 for redevelopment of its property. In June 2011 the Society made a representation to the Chief Executive Officer of the Slum Redevelopment Authority, Mumbai for removal of the petitioner as a developer on the ground that in 26 years petitioner had done only a fraction of the work assigned. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) permitted the Society to remove the petitioner as their developer. The petitioner thereafter filed an appeal before the High Power Committee which included the CEO. The Committee rejected the appeal by its order dated 18 June 2012. The consequence of the impugned orders is that the petitioner has been removed as a developer appointed for implementation of the Slum Re-development Scheme in question and is substituted by a new developer selected by the Society. By way of the present Writ Petition the petitioner has thus challenged these two orders, first passed by CEO, SRA and the second passed by High Powered Committee.

(3.) Though the dispute between the parties relates back two decades and parties have urged several points, we propose to restrict the scope of this judgment to only one issue: Whether the participation of the CEO, Shri. S. S. Zhende in the High Power Committee deciding the appeal arising from his own decision has vitiated the appeal proceedings. Thus the facts narrated hereinafter are only for the purpose of providing the background in which the impugned proceedings took place, to test the argument of bias.