IMPORTANCE OF OCCUPATION CERTIFICATE AND AVAIL THE AMNESTY SCHEME

IMPORTANCE OF OCCUPATION CERTIFICATE 
AND AVAIL THE AMNESTY SCHEME

Section 353

1.    It is a well known fact that, any building constructed, whether for commercial, residential or any other purpose shall be in accordance with the plans approved by the local civic authorities and the Developer/Builder should get the occupation certificate before the building could be inhabited / occupied by people.

2.    However in many cases it is observed the buildings which are not issued an Occupation Certificate by the concerned authorities for reason such as violations in buildings plans non-payment of development charges to the civic authorities and so on are being occupied by people.

3.    A building without a Completion Certificate is termed as an unauthorized or illegal structure and the occupation or allowing occupation of such buildings is a criminal offence and as such any person or persons occupying a unit, whether a Flat or a shop, in such building is liable to be evicted by the concerned Civic authority through legal course under the provisions of section 353 A of Municipal Corporation Act, 1988,

Section 353 A of Municipal Corporation Act, 1988 is reproduced herewith for the benefit of our members and general public.

1] Every person who employs a licensed surveyor or person approved by the Commissioner to erect a building or execute any such work as is described in section 342 shall, within one month after the completion of the erection of such building or the execution of such work, deliver or send or cause to be delivered or sent to the Commissioner at his office, notice in writing of such completion, accompanied by a certificate in the form of schedule T signed by the person employed under section 344A, who is hereby required immediately upon completion of the work and upon demand by the person employing him to sign and give such certificate to such person, and shall to give to the Commissioner all necessary facilities for the inspection of such building or of such work.

Provided that:

a) Such inspection shall be commenced within seven days from the date of receipt of the notice of completion and

b) the commissioner may, within seven days from the date of commencement of such inspection, by written intimation addressed to the person from whom the notice of completion was received, and delivered at his address as stated in such notice, or, in the absence of such address, affixed to a conspicuous part of the building to which such notice relates-

i) give permission for the occupation of such buildings or for the use of the building or part there of affected by such work or

ii) refuse such permission in case such building has been erected or such work executed so as to contravene any provision of this Act or of the bye-laws.

2] No person shall occupy or permit to be occupied any such building or use or permit to be used the building or part there of affected by any such work, until-

a) the permission referred to in proviso (b) to sub section (1) has been received, or

b) the Commissioner has failed for twenty one days after receipt of the notice of completion to intimate as aforesaid his refusal of the said permission.

Ø  Now, as per estimation there are nearly 5000 buildings in Mumbai City and about 2000 buildings in THANE without the mandatory occupation Certificates and number of such “illegal” structures had been increasing steadily.

Ø  Not having an Occupation Certificate implies that the builder has not complied with the requirements of and for the project and the residents are allowed to live or living in the building illegally. The residents of such buildings are suffering due to the builders’ negligence and at the same time the residents are made to pay extra taxes as penalty.

Ø  It is also true that in many cases the developers and architects abandon the project and leave the occupants high and dry giving them no scope to obtain the mandatory NOC.

Ø  It is also true that the process of calculating charges for approval takes into account the currents rates which are much higher than those prevalent during occupation of the building. In such a situation it becomes very difficult for the occupants to pay the exorbitant amount for obtaining Occupation Certificate.(OC).

In an attempt to eradicate the hardships of the people or the occupants of such illegal buildings in specific, the Government of Maharashtra has proposed a policy to give amnesty to the occupants of such buildings which do not have a Occupation Certificate and the Chief Minister has also informed that it is imperative for the Government to streamline the process of providing Completion Certificate and Occupation Certificates as the prevalent process is being misused by a section of developers for their benefit or harass the public at large.

We regret to mention here that a similar scheme introduced in earlier announcing a policy to give amnesty to avail the amnesty scheme for obtaining the OC but the same did not yield expected results for lack of awareness of the scheme by the aggrieved public / unit owners.

We at SAHAKARSUTRA request the societies, its members / aggrieved public to take full advantage of the scheme of amnesty on Occupation Certificate.

Dayanand Nene