Saturday, January 14 2006 10:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court in an interim order yesterday (Jan 13, 2006)allowed the private property developers, who had bought National Textile Corporation mills in Mumbai, to go ahead with construction activities.

A Bench comprising Justice S B Sinha and Justice P P Naolekar said the order was subject to the outcome of the appeals filed by the developers and NTC.

The interim relief came on five mills of NTC Bombay Textiles Mills, Eliphinstone Mills, Jupiter Mills, Kohinoor Mills and Apollo Mills which were sold to private property developers through auctions.

After this order, the Bench reserved its verdict against the Bombay High Court judgement holding that the sale of surplus lands by National Textile Corporation were contrary to the BIFR scheme and apex court orders.

During the pendency of the appeals, the apex court had allowed the NTC Mills and developers of the plots to approach the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other authorities for clearance of their developmental plans.

The High Court had held that sale of the mill lands by NTC were contrary to the scheme of Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) and Supreme Court orders.

The High Court had also held that all the constructions carried out by various developers were clearly in violation of Government Notification of July 7, 2004, as admittedly none of them have obtained clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Bombay Environmental Action Group, an NGO, had filed a PIL alleging that surplus lands were sold in violation of rules.

Besides NTC, the Apollo Textile Mills, Mumbai Textile Mills, Elphinstone Mills, Kohinoor Mill No 3 and Jupiter Mills, Bombay Dyeing and several others have challenged the High Court judgement.

The NGO 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) rules 58.