Limits of Public Street Expansion Powers
Sections 297 and 299 of the Municipal Corporations Act – Public Street
The petitioners are the owners of the property at Lake Road, Bhandup, Mumbai, with factory and other building structures.
MCGM issued notices for acquisition of the land to provide 12.20 meter-wide from 9.15 meter wide regular of public street to connect Gamdevi Road and Lake Road and for acquisition.
A portion of the Petitioners’ existing factory stands on the proposed road alignment. If land is acquired for the proposed public street, it would split a functioning factory as the factory stores, workers’ canteen, administrative area and discharge facilities would be separated from the main factory. The Petitioners would also lose the space presently available for loading and unloading trucks
in our view the Respondents cannot take possession of the Petitioners’ private land between points C and D by invoking Sections 297 and 299 of the Act in the facts of the present case. The existing road terminates at point C and there is no existing road between points C and D. The portion from points C to D forms an integral part of a long-settled factory on the said property which has been in the Petitioners’ possession and use since 1957. The Petitioners have placed on record that the proposed acquisition would sever or materially affect the functioning of the factory by separating the factory stores, workers’ canteen, administrative area and discharge facilities from the main factory and by affecting the space presently used for loading and unloading the dispatch activity through trucks / heavy vehicles. The alignment between points C and D also contains gas pipes, electrical rooms and buried power cables connected with the factory. The impact of the proposed acquisition therefore, substantially and actually dismembers an existing factory by invoking a provision which is intended to deal with land and structures falling within the regular line of a public street in the circumstances contemplated by that provision.
Judgment dated 11.8.2026 of the High Court of Bombay in Writ Petition No.540 of 2026 of Newkem Products Corporation and another Vs. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai with interim applications.
