Byculla's crumbling Issa Building can be redeveloped as High Court rejects residents' pleas

Mumbai: A legal obstacle to rebuilding the dilapidated Issa Building in Madanpura, Byculla, has been removed. A division bench of Justices Suman Shyam and Gautam Ankhad of the Bombay High Court has dismissed petitions by some occupants who challenged eviction notices issued by MHADA under Section 95A of the MHADA Act.

The building has 83 units: 63 homes and 20 shops or offices. After it was declared dilapidated, its landowners proposed rebuilding it under Regulation 33(7) of the city's development control rules (DCPR). Fifty-seven occupants signed permanent alternate accommodation agreements and handed over their premises. The others challenged notices issued by a MHADA executive engineer on August 12, 2026, questioning his authority and claiming that conditions on rent and the corpus fund had not been met.

Advocate General Milind Sathe, appearing for MHADA, argued that Section 95A exists precisely so that individual occupants cannot hold up redevelopment, and said the executive engineer had acted with the authorisation of the chief officer of the MHADA board. Advocate Karl Tamboly, for the developers, described the structure as dangerously dilapidated.

The bench said Section 95A provides a summary procedure to speed up housing redevelopment and cannot be turned into a full civil dispute. It took note that the developers had lodged the rent and corpus money with MHADA once the petitioners turned it down, and recorded MHADA's assurance that every applicable condition would be strictly enforced.

Source: Mumbai Live