The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a contempt notice to the Municipal Commissioner of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and ordered that the commissioner's salary be withheld, after finding that the civic body had failed to comply with time-bound directions to clear encroachments from land earmarked for a public bus stand in Mumbai.
The order, passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, marked one of the sharpest judicial interventions in a long-running dispute over public land in the city's Borivali area.
The bench, which also comprised Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, said it was prima facie satisfied that the commissioner was guilty of contempt and wilful disobedience of directions issued on two earlier occasions, on November 13, 2025 and July 28, 2026.
It asked the commissioner to show cause why appropriate action should not be taken, and restrained the municipal corporation and the Maharashtra government from releasing any monthly salary to the commissioner or the commissioner's personal staff until its directions are complied with.
The court also rejected the civic body's application seeking more time to pass eviction orders against the occupants of the land, and imposed costs of Rs 5 lakh on the municipal body. During the hearing, the bench said the commissioner would not draw a salary until December 1, 2026 unless compliance took place earlier, making the financial consequence a direct incentive to act quickly.
It warned that the concerned officers could face imprisonment if the directions continued to be ignored.
At the centre of the case is about 5,800 square metres of land in Borivali, of which 3,400 square metres was earmarked for a Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport bus stand and an administrative building. The dispute involves the municipal corporation and a private developer, Parag Construction, and has been entangled in litigation for several years over who was responsible for handing over the land, completing the facility and removing unauthorised occupants.
Under consent terms recorded on October 31, 2002, the municipal corporation was required to cooperate with the developer in removing unauthorised occupants from the land. Earlier contempt proceedings were disposed of in January 2012 after 15 structures occupied by 13 unauthorised occupants were demolished.
The dispute resurfaced, however, when the developer alleged that encroachments continued to obstruct the project, while the civic body claimed that the developer had failed to hand over the bus stand and administrative building in completed condition.
On August 13, 2025, the Supreme Court directed the developer to hand over vacant and peaceful possession of the 3,400 square metres earmarked for the bus stand to the corporation. The corporation was directed to complete the remaining construction and make the facility functional within three months of taking possession, and to continue efforts to remove encroachments in and around the land in accordance with law.
The court returned to the matter on November 13, 2025, expressing prima facie concern that the civic body was attempting to evade its responsibility to remove encroachments after claiming that certain occupants were lawful tenants.
It directed the municipal commissioner to file a personal affidavit disclosing the occupants' particulars, the eviction notices issued, replies received, documents supporting claims of tenancy or ownership, and inquiries undertaken to verify whether those claims were genuine.
On July 28, 2026, the court directed the corporation to complete the work and remove the encroachments within three months. It clarified that civil court proceedings against notices issued to encroachers under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 would not prevent the removal of unauthorised occupants, since the civil court had not imposed an interim stay on such action.
When the matter came up again on Tuesday, the corporation sought a further extension of 30 days to pass eviction orders. Senior Advocate R P Bhatt, appearing for the civic body, submitted that show-cause notices had been issued to the occupants, that they had been heard twice, and that they had subsequently filed documents, with a final order on the notices yet to be passed.
He also said the civil court had directed the authorities not to evict the occupants without hearing them and had kept the matter for November 26 to monitor compliance.
The bench was not persuaded. It questioned why the hearing process had taken so long and expressed disbelief at the explanation offered in the extension application, namely that the concerned officer did not know Marathi and required English translations of Marathi documents.
Justice Bagchi referred to an affidavit filed on behalf of the corporation by Dr Praful Dinesh Tambe and asked whether it was to be believed that an officer in that position did not know the regional language.
The Chief Justice went further, suggesting that municipal officers were protecting the encroachers and questioning whether they were collecting regular payments from them. He said the officers appeared extremely keen to approach the civil court and the High Court, but extremely reluctant to comply with the Supreme Court's directions, and accused them of securing orders from the civil court without disclosing the Supreme Court's directions.
He warned that the court would not record any assurance of future compliance, saying the corporation should first act and that the court would appreciate compliance only after it happened.
The bench also questioned why the corporation had not brought the Supreme Court's directions to the civil court's attention, and said it appeared more willing to comply with directions issued by the civil court than with those passed by the apex court. It dismissed the extension application with costs, saying it would not grant a single additional day and that the officers must learn how to work within the time already given.
The order has wider significance beyond a single plot of land in Borivali. It underlines the Supreme Court's willingness to use personal consequences, including salary and the threat of imprisonment, to enforce compliance by senior civic officials when public infrastructure is delayed by encroachments.
Bus stands and other public transport facilities depend on clear possession of earmarked land, and prolonged disputes over such land can leave commuters without services that were planned years earlier.
For Mumbai's civic administration, the immediate task is now clear: pass the pending eviction orders, remove the encroachments in accordance with law, and complete the bus stand facility, or face a contempt hearing in which the commissioner must explain why stronger action should not follow. The court has left no room for further delay on paper, and its order makes the cost of inaction personal as well as institutional.
The case will now turn on whether the corporation acts within the window the court has effectively set. If it complies, the salary restraint will lift and the long-delayed bus stand can move towards completion. If it does not, the contempt notice will return for adjudication, with the bench having already recorded its prima facie view in unusually strong terms.
(Reporting based on Live Law and The Indian Express.)