JUDGMENT :

G.S. Patel, J.

1. “According to the structural consultants’ report obtained by the Petitioners, their building can be repaired. Therefore, the notices saying it is ruinous, dangerous and dilapidated and requiring it to be pulled down, and the report of the Technical Advisory Committee to that effect, should all be quashed.” This is the entirety of Mr. Murthy’s submission on behalf of the Petitioners. The submission is contrary to settled law, as set out below, and is unsupported on undisputed facts.

2. The Petitioners occupy various rooms or tenements of about 285 sq ft in a building known as Martand Prasad at Pannalal Ghosh Marg, Somwari Bazar, Malad (West), Mumbai 400 064. The building has two wings, Wing A and Wing B. The Petitioners’ rooms are all in Wing A (though paragraph 1 of the Petitioner claims, wrongly, that some of the Petitioners are in Wing B). It is undisputed that Wing B and Wing A are interconnected, at least structurally, and that Wing B has been evacuated as being dangerous, and has been either wholly or partly demolished.

3. This Petition, brought under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, follows the usual trajectory we have noticed in a raft of several dozen petitions in the last few months; there are probably hundreds of such petitions. The pattern runs like this. The building in question is always more than 30 years old. Sometimes it is much older. It has not been maintained either by the owner, who probably earns a meagre income from rent, nor by the occupants. Over time, and through sheer neglect, the building’s structural condition has inevitably deteriorated. Structural members and elements are severely damaged. The 1st Respondent, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (“MCGM”), issues a notice, usually under Section 354 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 (“the MMC Act”) following an independent inspection and assessment. Typically, the owner or landlord has a structural audit report saying the building is dangerous and must be pulled down. The MMC Notice calls on occupants to vacate. Under the extant MMC policy, evolved as a result of an interim decision of 23rd June 2014 of this Court, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai v State of Maharashtra & Ors, Writ Petition No. 1080 of 2015. The occupants have 30 days to produce their own report. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not. When they do, it is almost invariably a report saying the building can be repaired. The policy now demands that with conflicting reports, the matter is to be referred to a specially constituted Technical Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of the Director (ES&P), the present 3rd Respondent, of the MCGM. The rival consultants are given notice and are heard. The TAC is to make a site visit or visual inspection. After considering all material, it is then to make its independent technical assessment. There are different categories into which a building may be placed. A C-1 categorization is that the building is ruinous and cannot be repaired. A C-2B categorization is assigned when the building can be repaired without requiring to be evacuated. The interim order mentioned above held the feild until final disposal of the Petition on 28th February 2018. (2018) 5 AIR Bom R 460 : 2018 SCC Online Bom 816.

4. The entire policy was evidently set up precisely to allay fears that rapacious landlords in connivance with venal municipal officers were issuing Section 354 pull-down notices almost indiscriminately without any regard to the facts. This was meant as a fail-safe, or as another level of check and balance. The TAC is not a quasi-judicial authority. It was not ever intended that the independent assessment of the TAC, arrived at after an open consideration of rival contentions, would itself be susceptible to interference on facts — i.e. that a writ court in exercise of its discretionary and jurisprudentially constrained jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India would substi