Bombay high court clears path for redevpt project on 6-acre Nahur land

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday gave its go-ahead for a mega redevelopment project on seven acres of erstwhile Ceat Tyres land in Nahur.
A division bench of Justice Vasanti Naik and Justice C V Bhadang dismissed a petition challenging the permissions given by the state government for the redevelopment of the land. The HC said that it did not find anything illegal in the state’s decision.
The HC was hearing a petition filed by a former CEAT employee A A Jagirdar, who had opposed the state government’s decision to allow the sale of the land.
The project is being developed by Ashford Builders, which had purchased the seven-acre land in 2008 from Ceat. The developer plans to put up four over 36-storey residential towers on the land—two of the towers are already nearing completion. The four towers offer 2.5 to 4 BHK flats, podium car parking and high speed elevators.
Ashford told the high court that it has already spent over Rs 400 crore on the project, including the over Rs 60 crore it had paid to the government as premium for the land.
The petitioner claimed that the land was in an industrial zone and rules were not followed while allowing its redevelopment. The land was acquired from the local villagers in the late 1950s by the state government and given to Ceat for setting up a factory.
The state was represented by assistant government pleader J Saluja, who said that the state labour commissioner as well as the collector had given the no-objection certificate for the redevelopment project.
The lawyer for the developers pointed out that the seven-acre land did not house a manufacturing unit, but was used for storing material. He also relied on two reports by the tehsildar, as well as the collector’s report, which were the basis for allowing the sale of the land and the permissions for the redevelopment project.
Jagirdar told TOI that he would challenge the order before the Supreme Court.