Under the now-defunct Urban Land (Ceilings and Regulation) Act (ULCRA), builders will no longer have to abandon surplus property to public housing. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court recognized the conditions of permission signed between the government of the state and the body of the builders, Maharashtra Housing Industry Chamber.
The arrangement says that builders can now simply pay the government a one-time premium for maintaining the surplus land rather than handing it over for public housing. Despite the abolition of ULCRA in 2007, the state government held that those builders who had not surrendered their property when the law was in force were still responsible to do so.
In 2014, the high court of Bombay ruled in favor of the government of Maharashtra, stating that construction workers cannot escape this responsibility. The HC had empowered the state to recover from private landowners the surplus land for public housing for violations under the now-defunct law. The constructors (MCHI) questioned the SC decision, but worked out an agreement with the state.
"The Supreme Court's acceptance of the terms of approval implies that ULCRA was lastly buried," said Nayan Shah, president of MCHI. The Trade Union Joint Action Committee, comprising 40 major state trade unions, and Nivara Abhiyan opposed the conditions of approval in the SC, claiming the state favored landowners.
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