SARA HARRY D MELLO Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This group of writ petitions challenges the constitutional validity of sections 14 and 17 of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 ("Slum Act", for brevity).

(2.) In Mumbai city, otherwise known as the commercial capital of India, more than half the population resides in slums. While ordinarily we look at proliferation of slums as merely in terms of encroachments and unauthorised constructions, the draft National Slum Policy formulated by the Government of India in the Department of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation recognises that slums are an integral part of urban areas and contribute significantly to their economy both through their labour market contributions and informal production activities. The draft policy, therefore, endorses an upgrading and improvement approach in all slums. The policy further acknowledges that cities without slums should be the goal and objective of all urban planning for social and economic development.

(3.) Long before formulation of the draft National Slum Policy, the Legislature in the State of Maharashtra enacted the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 to make better provision for the improvement and clearance of slum areas in the State and their redevelopment and for the protection of occupiers from eviction and distress warrants and for matters connected with the said purposes. Originally, the perspective was that a slum area is or may be source of danger to the health, safety or convenience of the public of that area or of its neighbourhood, the reason of the area having inadequate or basic amenities or being in insanitary, squalid and over-crowded and, therefore, unfit for human inhabitation. The Act, therefore, empowers the Competent Authority to declare such area to be a slum area. A person aggrieved by such declaration may file an appeal to the Slum Tribunal within 30 days after the date of such declaration in the official gazette.