The Supreme Court, in an interim order, today allowed the mills of National Textile Corporation (NTC) and developers of the plots to approach the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other authorities for clearance of their developmental plans.A bench, comprising Justice S B Sinha and Justice P P Naolekar, passed the order to this effect during the hearing of a bunch of petitions by private mill owners and NTC challenging the Bombay High Court verdict holding that the sale of surplus land by NTC were contrary to the BIFR scheme and apex court orders.The bench said the interim order was subject to the final outcome of the appeals pending before it. The court also made it clear that no construction would be carried and there will be no third-party negotiations.The development plans will be considered by the BMC as per the revised guidelines introduced in 2003 relating to the open land issue, the bench said.The hearing will continue tomorrow.The high court had held that all the constructions carried out by various developers were clearly in violation of government notification of july 7, 2004 as none of them have obtained clearance from the ministry of environment and forests.Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG) had filed a public interest litigation alleging that surplus lands were sold in violation of rules.Besides NTC, Apollo Mills, Mumbai Mills, Elphinstone Mills, Kohinoor Mill no 3, Jupiter Mills, Bombay Dyeing and several others have challenged the high court judgement.BEAG had said that NTC had 25 textile mills spread over 285 acres in prime locations of the city estimated to be worth over Rs 5,000 crore. Of these, surplus land of five mills were sold in violation of development control (DC) Rule 58.
