Supreme Court To Hear Plea Against Sealing Of Advocates' Office In Basement Of Delhi Building

The Supreme Court on Monday heard a matter relating to the sealing of a basement office run by lawyers. 

The bench of CJI BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran was hearing the application filed by lawyers who purchased a basement office in Greater Kailash-I for setting up their chambers. Their office was subsequently sealed in 2019 by the orders of the Monitoring Committee. 

Sr Advocate Guru Krishna Kumar appeared for the aggrieved lawyers. 

Yesterday, the Court directed the Amicus Curiae, Senior Advocate Anita Shenoy to file a report regarding the same. On the next hearing , the bench would be passing orders accordingly. 

Matter will now be heard on October 27.

Background

It is the case of the applicants that the respondent, who is also a resident in the same building, filed a Complaint before the SDMC (South Delhi Municipal Corporation) alleging illegal constructions being carried out by the applicants in the basement. 

Subsequently, the respondent filed a writ petition before the Delhi High Court. The High Court in October 2018, directed the Respondent to approach the Monitoring Committee, and in November 2019, the Committee directed the sealing of the basement premises. 

Aggrieved by the same, the applicants have now filed applications under the MC Mehta batch of petitions seeking directions to the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) to de-seal the premises for the purposes of running a lawyer's office and to set aside the sealing order of the Monitoring Committee dated 20.11.2019. 

In 2019, the Supreme Court passed an interim order allowing the applicants o run their lawyer's office till the next date of hearing and listed the matter for January 2020.

The matter remained pending during the Covid-19 period, and attempts at settlement and mediation between the parties failed. By order dated September 13, 2022, the Supreme Court transferred all pending IAs related to the sealing orders of the Monitoring Committee to a newly constituted Judicial Committee.

In the previous hearings, the Court noted that the MCD had filed an affidavit highlighting several irregularities and illegalities in the construction of the building and that proceedings were pending before the competent authorities. The Court, accordingly, directed the matter to be taken up at an appropriate stage.

Case Details : M.C. Mehta v. Union of India | I.A. No. 182567 and 182573 of 2019 in W.P. No. 4677 of 1985