HC rejects HDIL plea on Mumbai airport slum clearance contract

The Bombay High Court today rejected an appeal filed by Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) against the court's earlier order upholding termination of the contract between HDIL and Mumbai International Airport Ltd for Airport slum re-development project.
The court also imposed a cost of Rs 10 lakh on HDIL for filing the case. Of this, Rs 5 lakh has to be paid to MIAL and Rs 2.5 lakh each to planning body MMRDA and Slum Rehabilitation Authority.
MIAL, which won the contract for privatisation of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport here, had signed an agreement with HDIL in October 2007 to clear slums on the fringe of airport land.

The slum-dwellers were to be rehabilitated and the work of slum clearance was to be completed by October 2011.
But MIAL terminated the agreement in January 2013, saying not a single slum had been cleared, following which HDIL filed an arbitration petition. It sought interim order to restrain MIAL from entering into an agreement with another builder for the rehabilitation work.
HDIL claimed it had constructed 7,000 tenements and another 17,000 were nearing completion. The developer blamed change in government policies for the delay, but the High Court did not accept its plea.