Bombay HC allows BMC to use residential building as quarantine facility

The Bombay High Court has permitted the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to use a private residential building it requisitioned as a quarantine facility, after the civic body gave an undertaking to pay a monthly rent of over Rs 28 lakh for such use.

In an order passed last week, a bench of Justices S J Kathawalla and N R Borkar permitted the BMC to use Neelkamal Realty Tower in Byculla area of Mumbai as a quarantine facility, as long as it paid the rent for the 200-odd tenants of the redevelopment building who are currently staying in transit accommodations.

Neelkamal Realty, a D B group company, had challenged the BMC's power to requisition private buildings and approached the high court, seeking that the civic body's decision to use them as quarantine facility be disallowed.

However, BMC's counsel Anil Sakhre told the high court on previous hearings that the civic body had powers to requisition private buildings under the Epidemic Diseases Act.