ORDER :

R. N. Laddha, J.

Heard Mr Sarvajit Patil, instructed by Mr Sachin Pinjari, learned counsel for the petitioners, Mrs Rupali Shinde, learned Additional Government Pleader, for respondent no.1-State and Mr Tejesh Dande, learned counsel for respondent no.2.

2. The petitioners, who claim to be the owners and the occupiers of the shop premises on the ground floor of respondent no.3-Society building, namely Shreenathji Sadan at Nerul, Navi Mumbai, have instituted this petition seeking the following reliefs:

“a. That this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other Writ, order or direction in the like nature of Article 226 of the Constitution of India thereby directing to the respondent no.2-Corporation to not to take action of demolition of the petitioners’ premises in the respondent no.3-Society;

b. That this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to direct the respondent no.2-Corporation to not take any coercive action against the petitioners without following the due procedure of law;

c. That this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to quash and set aside the impugned order dated 24th January, 2023 passed by the respondent no.2-Corporation;

d. That this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to quash and set aside the impugned notice dated 13th February, 2023 issued by the respondent no.2-Corporation to the petitioners;

e. That this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to quash and set aside the impugned notice dated 9th February, 2023 issued by the respondent no.4-MSEB to the respondent no.2-Society.”

3. In this case, there is no serious dispute on the following facts that are germane for deciding the issues that arise.

(i) The respondent-Corporation found the building to be dilapidated and, therefore, requested a Structural Audit Report of the building from the respondent-Society.

(ii) In response, respondent no.2-Society hired Meticulous Combines to conduct the audit. They submitted a report on March 25th, 2022 stating that the building was beyond repair and needed to be evacuated and demolished.

(iii) Upon reviewing this report, respondent NO.1-Corporation (for short ‘the Corporation’) declared the building dilapidated and classified it as C-1 (ruinous and irreparable). This decision was conveyed to the respondent-Society in an order dated January 24th, 2023.

(iv) After that the respondent-MSEB, on February 9th, 2023, sent a letter to the society requesting that they disconnect the building’s electric supply.

(v) Additionally, on February 13th, 2023, the Corporation also sent a letter to the society asking them to disconnect the water supply provided by it to the petitioners.

(vi) It is in these circumstances the society requested the occupants of the building to vacate the premises. Out of the 19 occupants of the building, 12 have already left, with the exception of the petitioners.

(vii) As the petitioners doubted the correctness of the Structural Audit Report of Meticulous Combines, a second audit was conducted by Consulting Structural Engineer Latesh S. Sanklecha on February 18th, 2023.

(viii) This report classified the building as C2-B category, indicating that it could be repaired without evacuation and no demolition is necessary.

4. We have perused both the Structural Audit Reports described above. It is seen from the report of Meticulous Combines that there are corrosion (structural) cracks at many places at columns, beams and chhajjas. The cracks are too wide and may tend to be of serious concern. The maximum internal part of a building is in damaged condition due to weather and corrosion effects, and the remaining portion is in very much deliberated condition. It goes on to add that at almost all locations, columns, beams, and slabs are in severely distressed condition due to extensive corrosion of reinforcement steel and exposed rebar. On the second floor, flat no.204 bedroom, a significant part of the ceiling cover concrete fallen and reinforcement exposed. Massive leakage through external as well as internal walls. The RH and core