The Bombay High Court has upheld the removal of gates erected by The Deccan Co-operative Housing Society Limited on an access road situated on Government land, holding that the Society could not convert the permitted access into an exclusive passage.
Justice Arun R. Pedneker held that the Society had only been granted access over the Government land and had never been given exclusive possession of it. At the same time, the Court clarified that the Society’s access could not be stopped without proper notice.
Background
The dispute concerned a strip of land used as an access road to the Society’s property in Mumbai. The Society had been using the access for several decades. The record showed that its plot had earlier been landlocked and that, in 1976, the Municipal Corporation permitted temporary access through Government land until a proposed 44-feet-wide Development Plan (D.P.) road was constructed.
The permission specifically required the Society to discontinue the temporary access once the D.P. road became available. The Court noted that the eastern-side D.P. road had since been completed and was being used by the Society.
The dispute intensified after the authorities sought removal of an iron gate installed at the entrance of the access road. The Society challenged the Collector’s order dated March 17, 2026, arguing that the land formed part of its original allotment and that the authorities had acted without giving it an opportunity to be heard.
The Court also examined whether an interim order passed in the Society’s separate civil suit protected the disputed gate and access strip.
After examining the prayers in the civil suit and the Society’s own pleadings, Justice Pedneker concluded that the gate and the strip of land on which it stood were not part of that suit. Therefore, the interim protection granted in the civil proceedings did not extend to the disputed access road.
The Court found from the maps and communications on record that the disputed strip belonged to the Government and was not included in the Society’s 1959 allotment. The land connected a D.P. road with a public road and had been used as an access route.
The Court explained that constructing a road on the land did not give the Society exclusive rights over it.
“The Petitioner has no right to put up a gate on a access road.”
The Court held that removing the gate did not prevent the Society from using the access. Instead, it kept the Government land available to the Society as well as other persons.
The Society relied on Section 53 of the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, arguing that the authorities could not take action without issuing notice and following the statutory procedure.
The Court considered an earlier judgment concerning eviction from Government land, where notice and an enquiry under Section 53 were required. However, Justice Pedneker distinguished that case because, here, the Society had not been granted the Government land itself. It had only been permitted to use the access.
The Court nevertheless clarified that if the State interfered with the Society’s permitted access, appropriate notice would have to be issued.
The Court found that the gate obstructed access to Government land and that the Society could not claim exclusive use of the access road. It therefore declined to interfere with the Collector’s direction for removal of the gates.
However, the State was directed not to grant exclusive use of the road to any other party. The access was required to remain open to the Society as well as others.
The writ petition was partly allowed, and the Rule was made absolute in those terms.
