Bombay High Court calls road encroachment situation ‘grim’

A footpath encroachment at Masjid Bunder. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

The Bombay High Court on Thursday expressed concerns over increasing encroachments on public roads in the city terming the situation "grim", and remarked that in the future residents would be forced to ride bicycles and horses.

A bench of Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Abhay Mantri wondered what would become of the city in the next two decades if squatting and illegal encroachments continued unchecked, and slammed the BMC, saying it seems to lack courage to remove them.

"If a stop is not put to this [illegal structures], in the future people would be forced to use only bicycles or horses on roads which would be taken over by encroachers," the court observed. The court made the remarks while hearing a plea filed by a Powai school over BMC's inaction against encroachments in the institute's vicinity.

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