PMC approaches District Court for Medical College land vacation

Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation(PMC), which has the responsibility of clearing city encroachments has discovered that its own 9 acre property reserved for a medical college — in Mitramandal chowk, near Swargate,has an unwelcome occupant .

The corporation which took the issue to the District Court has now ordered vacation of property by the owner. In the next 15 days.

J D Wadane Pune district and additional sessions judge on Wednesday in the order stated, “The owner needs to clear the encroachment within 15 days. If the instructions are not followed, then the corporation would clear the land and the owner will have to pay charges for it.”

Talking to Mirror, Ravindra Thorat, Head of Legal Department, PMC, who is also handling the case, said, “The property — referred to as plot number 490 (involving survey numbers 32, 33A, 33B, 33C and 34A-2+1in Parvati) — has been the subject matter of a long-winding civil dispute dating back to 1979. The state government handed over surplus land under urban land ceiling (ULC) to the corporation for amenity purpose in 1979. However, the land owner claims that the land was still his as the process of handing over of land to the coporation was never completed. A case had been filed by him in the Bombay High Court in 1997, which is still going on.”

Thorat continued, “The original case regarding the land ownership is pending. Meanwhile, the owner has installed fencing in the open space to which the corporation has objected and asked the court to order him to remove it.”

Suryakant Kakde, the owner who has filed a case against PMC, shared, “We have installed tin fences around the compound. The purpose is to save the open land from dumping of garbage and encroachment by other people. As per the court’s order, we removed the ownership board from the space. But, over the removal of the tin fencing, we will file a case in the HC. We are ready to hand over the land to the corporation if the order comes against us.”

Subhas Jagtap, senior corporator of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), who has been pursuing the issue, said, “The corporation has reserved the plot to start a medical college. It is part of the development plan (DP) as well. However, as the PMC failed to take custody of the land, the issue has reached the court. Now, the owner continues to encroach upon the property. It is sad that the corporation failed to protect its own land from encroachment,”reports Pune Mirror.