Legalising the illegal

The repercussions of the Bombay High Court’s judgement in the Pune land scam case will be felt in Mumbai which has more than its share of illegal construction. The operative part of the judgement by a division bench was the order to demolish two buildings belonging to Girish Vyas’s company. It is an entirely logical order. If the first decision to dereserve a plot of land is illegal, everything that follows must be illegal too. That includes the Pune Municipal Corporation’s grant of permission to build and the fruits of both decisions which are the buildings.

It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will be approached and what its view will be on this and related matters. For the moment what is of concern to Mumbai is a question that lies outside the strictly legal issue. In the Vyas case, it is being said that properties once built should be treated as public assets instead of being destroyed. A similar argument was raised in the past about illegal properties built in Mumbai by Dawood Ibrahim andother notorious property developers who played havoc with the city. The High Court’s view on this issue is very significant. In reply to a defence plea that demolition would be a waste of cement concrete, the judges said quite rightly that upholding the law is more valuable for society than a heap of cement concrete. At a time when illegal construction is the norm rather than the exception it is vital to set firm legal precedents.

The principle that the fruits of wrong-doing cannot be enjoyed is important. To ignore it is to invite builders to put up illegal structures and legalise them by paying fines. As is well known this is what happens all over Mumbai all the time in small and large ways with the active collusion of BMC officials. The idealists say if the structure is illegal it should go. Disinterested realists say an illegal property ought to be confiscated and turned into a public asset by being auctioned or by being used for a school or hospital. However, this is a deceptive argument.

Itignores a whole host of other concerns such as the impact on the local environment and makes nonsense of city planning. Society benefits from clear-cut civic rules. Any form of legalisation of the illegal must be rejected in the interests of city.