Nursing homes to have separate stairways: SC

The Supreme Court today said that nursing homes and clinics operating from residential apartments in Mumbai can only function if they construct a separate stairway leading to their premises.

The apex court said that those having such nursing homes and clinics on the second floor and above have to give undertaking that if they fail to get permission from the civic authority for making a separate stairway within six months they will shut down.

The order was delivered by a Bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and P Sathasivam which declined to interfere with the decision of the Bombay High Court, which had allowed the petition of a Cooperative Housing Society seeking to restrain such medical establishments from operating in residential apartments.

“When you buy a residential floor it is deemed that you are buying for residential purpose,” the Bench observed.

Senior advocates Ashok Desai and Harish Salve appearing for Association of Medical Consultants, had submitted that keeping in mind the realities of Mumbai, it was not possible to build a separate stairway.

They had said that the high court decision will have far reaching implications on Mumbai’s middle class which depend on such nursing homes and clinics.