IN THE judgement of the case- Zahiruddin Muniruddin Shaikh and others v. Union of India and others, delivered on October 7, 2026, at the Bombay High Court in Mumbai Justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Ashish S Chavan have made it clear that though, in this case there are only seven petitioners before the Court, it permitted the Railway to issue similar notices in respect of all those persons, who are occupying the property of Railway unauthorisedly, but these notices shall not apply to those persons, who are occupying some private land. Upon such notices being received, not only the petitioners, but all those who are unauthorised occupants and against whom the orders under the Public Premises (Eviction of unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 are issued, as early as in 2022 are bound to vacate their premises or else the directions by the Court would follow.

 

In the wake of these facts the HC has issued the following directions: (i) The respondents- Central Railways, do immediately issue notices to the occupants of the concerned structures, which are falling within the belt, which is required immediately for commencing the remaining project work by giving 30 days’ time to the concerned occupant/s to vacate the respective premises; (ii) In respect of remaining land owned by Railways, even though it may not be immediately required for the project, similar notices be given to the occupants of structures standing thereon by giving thirty days’ time to vacate the respective premises; (iii) in either case (i) and (ii), the notices be issued within one week from the date of the judgement and if the occupants fail to vacate unauthorised structure, it will be open to the respondent-Central Railways to initiate appropriate action to forcibly dispossess them and to demolish or remove the unauthorised structure(s) by taking assistance of the local Police force.

 

The Superintendent/Police Commissioner of the concerned area shall ensure that adequate Police force is deployed on the site and surrounding areas including to provide protection to the officials/ staff engaged in the demolition of unauthorised structures and to facilitate them to commence the eviction process and demolition of the unauthorised structures referred to in the eviction notices on the specified date and time. (iv) Before commencing the process of eviction and removal of the structures, the Collector of the concerned District must ensure that necessary details about the names and number of persons occupying the concerned structure, including their identity and profile should be duly recorded, which should be preserved by the Collector for considering the eligibility of those persons for being provided suitable residential accommodation after being evicted owing to proposed demolition action; (v) The Central Railways shall pay a sum of Rs 2,000/per month per demolished structure for a period six months from date of the demolition of their structure as ex-gratia amount to the head of the family /occupants of the concerned unauthorised structure removed during the demolition action; (vi) In the event, the local Government has any rehabilitation scheme , the affected person may apply for being rehabilitated under the said scheme, if eligible and subject to verification of eligibility and complying with all the other terms a conditions of prevalent scheme. The local Govt. may provide them suitable residential accommodation in lieu of rehabilitation owing to demolition of their structure. (vii) If no rehabilitation scheme has been formulated by the local Government. or is in force, the persons likely to be affected by the action of demolition can apply for allocation of residential premises under the for Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna Scheme which application may be processed not later than six months from the date of its receipt and taken to its logical end, application-wise within such period. (viii) Be it a case of rehabilitation under clause (vi) or (vii), the persons affected by demolition action by the authorities cannot insist for allocation of alternative residential accommodation at the same place from where they have been evicted (as it is not in situ election program).

 

The eligible persons be allotted accommodation wherever available in the same or even neighbouring districts. (ix) In addition, since the Railways have power to initiate civil/criminal action against the unauthorised occupants on the Railway property, must resort to those proceedings against the concerned official of the Railways. These seven petitioners’ claim was of being in exclusive use, occupation and possession of certain rooms /units situated on Rajeev Gandhi Nagar, SG Barve Marg, Kurla (E) and it is the claim set out by them that along with them, several other occupants, dwellers have been in exclusive and uninterrupted use, occupation, possession and enjoyment of the respective slums for several decades. At this juncture only, it must be noted that though a pleading in the petition is to the effect that there are around 350 slums situated at plot at Rajeev Gandhi Nagar, but only 7 petitioners had approached the Court. The petitioners’ counsel submitted that the petitioners who are in long and continuous occupation of Jhuggis/ tenements situated on the aforesaid land, were served with show cause notices by the Railways, sometime in the year 2022 under section 4 of the Public Premises (Eviction of unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, thereby calling upon them as to why an eviction order should not be passed against them. The petitioners were also served with notices by the Railway Authorities, directing them to remove the unauthorised structures between Kms 15/400 16200 to Kms 20.00 on Kurla –Trombay Line in seven days.

 

The petitioners approached the HC and challenged the aforesaid notices by placing heavy reliance upon the decision of the Supreme Court in the case-Utran se Besthan Railway Jhopadpatti Vikas Mandal v Government of India and others, wherein a SLP was filed raising challenge to the HC’s order in a writ petition, espousing the cause of the petitioners, in PIL in regards to the occupants of the structure concerned persons on Railway property, when the petition came to be rejected by the High Court. The HC has also directed the Collector, Mumbai Suburban to take steps for rehabilitation of the persons who have been moved from the land belonging to Railway and the Collector shall, in consultation with the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, make every effort to rehabilitate them at the earliest in the existing scheme, which is formulated either by the Corporation or if no such Scheme is available, then their candidature should be considered for being accommodated in PM Awas Yojna Scheme, in any case within six months not only in respect of the petitioners, but also other similar evictees.