Standard Post with Image

Bombay HC Clears Decks for Navi Mumbai Airport

  • The Bombay High Court on Thursday cleared the decks for the construction of the Navi Mumbai international airport — stalled ever since one Bivalkar family of the Ulwe village in Panvel claimed ownership to a 157-acre stretch of land meant for the new airport.While the state stated that it had acquired this land in the 1960s and later, in 1973, transferred it to Cidco, the Navi Mumbai town planning body, the Bivalkar family staked its claim over the title of the land. Thereafter, the plot’s transfer to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was stalled.
  • Allowing Cidco to transfer the disputed land to the AAI, a division bench comprising justice DK Deshmukh and justice RY Ganoo on Thursday observed that “records show that the land has been in Cidco’s possession for several years now”.While the town planning authority assured the court that the land won’t be used for any other commercial purpose than the airport, the HC bench has for now kept open the row over the land title.“In case it is held that the land does not rest with the government or Cidco, the Bivalkars family will be eligible for relief,” it said, while adding that both sides needed to be heard at length before the ownership issue is resolved. “At this stage, it cannot be definitely said if the petitioner (Bivalkars) are the owners,” the bench remarked.
  • The court has also allowed the state to withdraw an earlier statement made by a government pleader in 2005 — conceding that the land belonged to the Bivalkars — after advocate general Ravi Kadam argued that it was made after consulting the forest department, which has no authority to decide on ownership.Agreeing with Kadam, justice Deshmukh remarked: “Prima facie, it appears that the government pleader’s statement was wrong. Moreover, if the government had handed over the land to Cidco in 1960s itself, then it does not have the authority to make a statement about its ownership.”According to the government, it came to own the land after enactment of the Inam Abolition Act, when theinamdar system (feudal land-holding system) was abolished.

Source