Mumbai Campa Cola ruling of SC : Are the violators punished ?

A small note on Campa Cola Building (Mumbai) demolition ruling by SC

An accomplice is well defined in the law. The one who explictly or implictly supports the act of offence may also come in the category of accused.

Any kind of destructive punishment can be termed as punishment meted out under criminal jurisprudence.

The ruling of Hon SC favoring the case of Mumbai Municipal Corporation of demolition of unauthorized construction in Campa Cola Building, cannot be  judged on the sole criterion of illegality of such construction. Time and again in such matters the courts have failed the victims rather than punishing the accused or accomplices.

Let us analyse and rationalise to see that at the best if not illegal, still the order of Hon SC in this matter is half cooked.

The parties to the matter are:

1. Mumbai Municipal Corporation.

2. The MLC of the area.

3. The Builder.

4. The Local SHO.

5. The Local MLA.

6. The Area MP.

7. The buyers

8. The present residents.

And the by product of illegal collusion among all (or some) of the above is:

The Flats.

The basis of the judgement

The illegality cannot be perpetuated, the unauthorized construction must go.    

The victims

These unfortunate flat holders.

The punishment receiver

The Flats.

Those who remained unpunished

All as listed in Sr#1 to #6

The above sums up all the artists involved in the drama in front of Hon Supreme Court, it is not difficult to see that the order of Hon SC exonerated all the parties to drama and punished “The Flats” the dumbest of all.

Reasoning against the order

After few centuries our judicial system realized that there is no “illegitimate Child”, the word “bastard” should be taken off the dictionary. It is the produce of socially unlicensed union between two consenting adults. So far and even today “the produce”, the innocent child is pained throughout his life for no fault of his. The real social offenders (if at all we can call them so, another point of argument) that is parents to such children are never punished.

The same is the story all around in our developing cities with respect to unlicensed constructions, the innocent and the dumb “The Flats” like that child has no role to play in this, has no means of committing this offense, but still “The Flats” are punished that is they are executed, demolished, with absolutely no punishment to the parties who produced them without license.

So a person (or a juristic person like companies or flats) cannot be punished if they have no role in the offense, but still they are punished. Why ?

The Hon Supreme Court possibly cannot answer this question, they are so marred by the concept of non perpetuating the illegality in the law, that the first thing the courts do is either to stall the difficult question involving many people (this case took decades) or come up with a pompous reasoning like illegality cannot be perpetuated. But the point is who stops the judges and in fact it is the duty of Hon courts to convey to the law commission that so and so law needs betterment.

Hon judiciary has failed us in False Domestic Violence Cases, have they written to Hon parliament to look into certain aspects of this law to minimize the misuse, our judiciary believes that no single innocent be punished, I do not have to put data in front of you about the misuse and false imprisonment of many many innocent old people and even including children under this law.

Hon Judiciary is failing us in False Cheque Bounce Cases  (more than 50 Lacs accused under this law), absolute incorrect interpretation of law to the extent that the complainant who should be prosecuted under various section of IPC is enjoying the persecution of innocent drawer. Here the judiciary is directly at fault. An article on this can be referred http://www.lawyersclubindia.com/articles/Cheque-Bounce-Law-Incorrect-Interpretation-by-courts--6101.asp#.U6wuX5SSzYQ

Sooner, rather very soon, our judiciary will have plethora of false cases under amended CrPC section 354A. Two dignified honorable judges of the SC were just saved because the alleged misdemeanor was before this amendment. Very recently one 70 year old man was dragged into S.354, because he complaint to police regarding stealing of jewllery worth Rs. 10 Lacs by his maid servant. The prompt police forgot the original case and filed a new case against this man, very next day the maid changed her stand in front of magistrate. But police failed him, judiciary was about to fail him.

Hon Judiciary is failing us in this illegal construction business as well. We are a developing nation, the property prices have sky rocketed, the non profit government agencies meant for the social welfare of the citizen is also minting money due to this uncontrolled increase in the price of land. The Hon SC has never bothered to see (they have the suo moto power) the auction advertisement given by many government agencies which are not supposed to make profit as per their constitutional mandate, every few months or so the great DDA (the Delhi Development Authority) opens the grand auction sale of plots of size 24 Sqyards at the reserved prices of  Rs. 3.0 Lacs per square yard. A toilet size piece of land being reserved at a price by DDA at Rs. 72.0 lacs!! A decent livable plot around 200 Sqyards has a reserved price as advertised by DDA around Rs. 6.0 Crore. Neither the cabinet secretary of government of India nor the Chief Justice of India can buy these flats at this rate. But still they are being sold and the Hon Supreme Court has turned a blind eye to this.

Now with this kind of rates of land, the illegal construction is bound to happen, that too when the law of land is so confusing, in the hands of corrupt municipal corporations as possibly recorded even by the judiciary.

Now the point is, you can punish a person (or a juristic person) if he is aware of the offense, kind of mens rea.

So for an illegal construction…

1. The Construction “The Flats” cannot be punished.

They are like those illegitimate children and why they should suffer for no faults of theirs. It makes no sense to punish these flats after they have attained the age of 30 years.

2. The buyers or their legal heirs

30 years ago, the information available was miniscule to the ordinary people of this country. Even today when a big builder announces that so and so flats are coming up and the necessary authorization has been taken from authorities, then people generally believe them. That is the kind of trust and faith we show in the people with whom we deal with. So there is no fault of those people who purchased these flats years ago, there was no criminality in their mind, in fact most of the present residents would not have been party to this purchase, and hence they cannot be termed as offenders. And they cannot be punished or made to suffer.

3. The Builder

He is purely driven by business greed. And this greed is fueled by dishonest officials. He deserves to be punished for fooling people also, for giving incorrect information to people, for undue enrichment.

4. The Local Area Police.

The first level of check on unauthorized construction, within 24 Hrs of start of a fresh construction in any nook and corner of a city, and the policeman arrives at the door. No illegal construction can take place without the blessings of the local police station. They should be made more accountable, criminally accountable.

5. The MLC.

He should stop dreaming of becoming the MLA or MP. Any moderately big construction and he is aware of legality or illegality of the same. Being the representative of people he should be made more accountable. Instant termination of MLCship like termination of driving license for 3 offenses.

6. The Don .. the Municipal Corporation

If anyone has ever approached the MC office for getting a sanction plan approved, then he will know the low level at which this department has gone to. They are the prime accused, and they must be severely punished.

7. The Law

Needs to be over hauled with absolute clarity, a builder should not be allowed to  start the construction without an NOC from a single window agency, with the approved building plan of the entire structure prominently placed on the site and various other places. Moreover all other civic agencies like Electricity, Water, Gas etc should insist for mandatory authorization of flats before granting connections, idea should be to prevent illegal construction rather than demolish afterwards.

So the Hon SC in Campa Cola matter must take suo moto cognizance against the local police, the then MLC, the then Municipal commissioner and should not  punish innocent “the flats” and victimise “the residents”.

30 years have gone, the sky will not fall, if few more months are given to these people with an instruction to Urban Development Ministry to come up with a new law, even retrospectively will do if the real culprits are punished.