JUDGMENT :

GS Patel J.

1. Rule. Respondents waive service. By consent, Rule is made returnable forthwith, and the petition is taken up for hearing and final disposal.

2. There is an Affidavit in Reply dated 31st December 2021 of one Nilesh B Suryawanshi, Resident Executive Engineer of the 5th Respondent for himself and on behalf of Respondents Nos. 4 to 7. The Affidavit in Reply is taken on record.

3. The Petitioner is a private limited company. In this Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, it seeks a direction to the 7th Respondent, the Chief Officer of the Repair Board, to delete Clause 25 of the No Objection Certificate (“NOC”) dated 28th February 2011 and Clause 28 of a revised NOC dated 4th June 2015. Specifically, the prayer is to direct MHADA to de-club the combined premises and to treat the Petitioner as a separate tenant.

4. The NOC of 28th February 2011 is at Exhibit “C” to the Petition at page 126. Clause 25 of this NOC says that the 22 different private limited companies shown as “newly inducted tenants/occupants” are to be treated as a single occupier in possession of the owner. Accordingly, their occupied areas are clubbed together. All are considered as residential and owner-occupied. A similar condition is in Clause 28 of the revised NOC of 4th June 2015, a copy of which is at Exhibit “M” at page 205.

5. The narrow controversy is, therefore, whether the 22 tenants should be clubbed together.

6. The Petitioner claims a tenancy in respect of Room No. 5 in a building called Saraswati Vinayak Pandurang building. The Pathare Prabhu Charities Trust, a public charitable trust, holds the freehold land on which the building stands. This is located at Pandita Ramabai Road, CS No. 409 of the Malabar and Cumballa Hill Division in “D” Ward in Mumbai. There are three structures on the building known as Pathare Prabhu Dnyati Bhuvan No.1, Saraswati Vinayak Pandurang building, and an outhouse. These were occupied by various tenants or occupants. Two structures were constructed prior to 1940 and are, or were, certified as Category-A cessed structures under Section 84 of the MHADA Act. One structure in the property was not cessed.

7. The re-development of the two cessed structures would be regulated by Development Control Regulation or DCR 33(7) read with Appendix-III to the Development Control Regulations, 1991. This, inter alia, allows existing tenants or occupants whose names are certified by MHADA to be given permanent alternate accommodation in the redeveloped building.

8. The two cessed structures are very old, and being constructed prior to 1940, are in a dilapidated condition.

9. The Trust appointed the 8th Respondent developer to undertake redevelopment work and executed a Development Agreement on 22nd May 2007. There followed a Deed of Confirmation on 10th August 2010.

10. In 2010, one of the original tenants, Lalita Umakant Dharadhar, assigned her tenancy rights in respect of Room No. 5 in favour of the Petitioner. The Petitioner approached the Trust and the developers and, after some negotiations, an Agreement was executed on 12th August 2010 by which the Petitioner acquired Dharadhar’s tenancy rights in respect of Room No.5 (about 410 sq ft carpet area). This Agreement was duly registered and stamped.

11. On 2nd November 2010, the Deputy Engineer of the Repair Board and the Executive Engineer of the Repair Board, after inspection, prepared an office note specifically stating that the tenancies were considered eligible as they conformed to the criteria mentioned in Sr. No.21 of Annexure “B” of a Government Resolution dated 16th August 2010.

12. On 25th November 2010, the Deputy Chief Engineer Zone II of the Repair Board posed a question as to whether a tenancy can be transferred from a tenant to a private limited company and referred the matter to the Chief Officer of the Repairs Board.

13. The 8th Respondent developer had already obtained a NOC on 28th February 2011 for redevelopment of the property. The Petitio