IMPORTANT POINT
Tenants retain their rights to occupy and reconstruct a demolished tenanted building, and property owners have legal obligations to redevelop or reconstruct under municipal law, which the MCGM is empowered to enforce.

JUDGMENT/ORDER

G.S.PATEL J. - Rule. Rule returnable forthwith.

2. There are two Affidavits in Reply by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai ("MCGM") and an Affidavit in Reply by the 6th Respondent ("Vinay Dwivedi") on behalf of himself and Respondent Nos 7 and 8. Mr Raheja appears for Respondent No 9 who is a co-owner of the property and claims that Respondent Nos 6 to 8 are legal heirs of the original lessee. No reliefs are sought against Respondent No 9 who has apparently been joined as a necessary party.

3. Before us the matter has unfolded steadily but, as we shall presently see, in a wholly unsatisfactory fashion from 21/8/2023. We turn first to the orders that we passed since that date. They tell their own story.

4. The first order is of 21/8/2023. It reads thus:

"1. This is a most unfortunate situation. The Petitioner Association has 103 or 104 members. They are tenants of a structure that was called Chandralok at CTS No. 872, 872/1 to 46 Dubey Wadi, Sudhakar Dubey Compound, Aarey Road, Village Pahadi, Goregaon (West), Mumbai - 400104. Respondent No. 2 is the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai ("MCGM"). Respondent No. 6 is one Vinay Ashok Dwivedi. He appears in person. Respondent No. 9 is one Shamina Pramod Jaykar. She is the owner and lessor of the plot on which the building stood. Mr Dwivedi attempted to begin addressing this problem by saying that he was the lessee and not the lessor, as if to suggest that the issues with the tenants were that of Ms Jaykar and were not his concern. But it emerges as an undisputed position that Ms Jaykar is the lessor only of the land not the structure, and that it is Mr Dwivedi who is the lessee of the land, but the owner of the structure. The law in India recognises explicitly the concept of dual ownership, separately for land and separately for structure. Mr Dwivedi should be well aware of this.

2. The building Chandralok is said to have been not only more than 55 years old, but also consistently neglected. It was the subject of notices under Sec. 354 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 from the MCGM. While those notices were indeed challenged in civil proceedings, the fact also undisputed is that the building has been brought down. Mr Dwivedi would have it that it is the Petitioner Association that "demolished" the building, but this is hardly relevant. Indeed, we would venture so far as to say that it is entirely irrelevant. The tenants are now scattered across the city, forced to fend for themselves, and to find accommodation wherever they can on whatever terms they are best able to afford. They are provided no transit rent. There is so far no indication of any redevelopment proposal. There is no prospect in sight of their homes being rebuilt or redeveloped.

3. It is not the law that tenancies end with the pulling down of a structure. The law is to the reverse. The obligations of the owner of a structure are well settled, both in municipal law as also under the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999. These are not obligations that can be avoided, and this Court has repeatedly held as much, even if Mr Dwivedi is presently unaware of those legal obligations.

4. We require an Affidavit in some urgency from the MCGM about the state of the building, the details of when it was brought down and whether the MCGM has on its files any proposal at all from the owners of the structure for redevelopment of the building, the appointment of a developer and any proposals for payment of transit rent or the provision of transit accommodation.

5. Similarly, Mr Dwivedi is to file an affidavit setting out what he proposes to do in regard to the property that has now been demolished. We make it clear that it is open to Mr Dwivedi to say on affidavit, though at his peril, that he proposes to do precisely nothing about the re- development of this building. If that be his stand, we will decide what the law requires him to do and what he is, therefore, then obligated to do. If he does have a