Govt accused of teaming up with landlords

mumbai: a wave of indignation swept through the 25 lakh tenants of cessed buildings in the island city on saturday after they were given the short shrift at a workshop on the redevelopment of their buildings. not a single representative of the tenants was invited to speak at the workshop which was packed with bureaucrats, owners of the cessed buildings and builders.when some tenants tried to intervene by raising points in the question-answer session, minister of state for housing nawab malik brushed them aside with cursory replies. ''this only confirms our fears that the government is hand-inglove with landlords and builders,'' says manohar samant, president of the federation of tenants associations which represents 25 lakh tenants. adds his deputy, ravi deshpande, ''if the government had any concern for tenants, it would have involved our representatives as well.'' instead, they added, the government seemed to have teamed up with their landlords, represented by the property owners' association (poa) and the cessed properties developers' association (cpda). the move has led to raised eyebrows as the state government and the poa are fighting a protracted legal battle over the provisions of the rent act pertaining to standard rent and also the tenant-ownership scheme. in fact, the case comes up for hearing before a seven-judge bench of the supreme court on february 5. property lawyer mahabaleshwar morje and murari chaturvedi of accommodation times agree that the tenants ought to have been involved, but they see nothing wrong in the government's initiative in trying to break the stalemate on the vexed issue. apart from mr malik, the participants at the workshop, held at the property 2002 exhibition at the bandra-kurla complex, were chief secretary v. ranganathan, v.m. lal, principal secretary, housing, and additional civic commissioner s.j.kunte. apart from the rent act, the government is involved with these buildings through their repairs. since many landlords neglected the maintenance of their properties, citing paltry rent returns, and tenants said the job was beyond their means, the government had stepped in and undertaken this responsibility in the case of 19,600 buildings in return for a repair cess. the landlords argue that the rent act is unjust as well as unconstitutional.