Setting an example, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday passed a judgment in a record two hearings conducted within just eight months against Dinesh Sonawane, the retired deputy registrar of Konkan Bhavan, holding him responsible for passing conveyance orders without following due legal procedures.
Why the petition was filed
Sushil Bhatia, chairman of Swastik Chambers, told mid-day, “This was a land parcel of nearly 35,000 sq m on which Swastik Chambers was built first. Later, some part of the land was given to Reliance. The developer then built two commercial properties — Corporate Park and Shree Corporate. As per rules, Swastik Chambers was the owner of this entire 1,60,000 sq ft area. However, after the HC judgment in the case of Marathon Era was passed, we applied to get conveyance. This was when we got to know about the orders passed by Sonawane. After filing an RTI application to get information about these orders and consulting our legal department, we filed the writ petition last year against these orders.”
The Corporate Park building
The case
In February 2018, Sonawane granted deemed conveyance for land in Chembur to Corporate Park. In its application, Corporate Park requested conveyance of land area 9274.23 sq m. In February 2019, the same authority passed another order in the same case, increasing area to 17,449.75 sq m after another architect certificate was submitted by Corporate Park. But , Swastik Chambers, which is built on this land parcel, was not informed. Both orders were passed by Sonawane without taking any objects/suggestions from Swastik Chambers.
Court’s findings and orders
>> Once a case is decided, the authority cannot reopen and modify it without proper legal procedure
>> Thus, the second order passed by the deputy registrar was essentially modified, based on new documents, but without legal basis
>> The 2019 order and resulting conveyance deed were quashed (cancelled)
>> The 2018 order remains valid, and Corporate Park gets conveyance for only 9274 sq m
>> The officer responsible was found to have acted improperly, but since he had retired, no departmental action could be taken
>> However, a Rs 50,000 penalty on the officer personally has been imposed
>> Failing to pay the fine within eight weeks, six per cent interest will be applicable annually
What’s deemed conveyance?
It is a legal process where a cooperative society obtains ownership of a land parcel and building titles when the builder/developer of that land fails to execute a regular conveyance deed after purchasing the land parcel
