Sanitary Workers' 18-Year Wait for Housing: Bombay High Court Finds BMC Affidavit Non-Compliant, Seeks Fresh One

The petitions concern a State Government policy of 2008, in the Government Resolution dated 22 October 2008, obliging the Municipal Corporation to provide its sanitary workers housing on ownership basis (paras 1, 5). On 10 August 2026 the Court recorded the Commissioner's earlier stand that she would take stock of BMC lands for the scheme, and directed a further affidavit listing the leasehold, tenanted and amenity lands and stating which could be used for the workers' housing (para 6). The affidavit filed on 31 August 2026 did not do so. After the Court asked the Corporation's senior counsel to discuss it with the Commissioner, he stated that she had nothing further to add (paras 2-4).

The Court described sanitary workers as remaining "amongst the most exploited, marginalized and vulnerable workforces", whose plea had been neglected by the Corporation for almost 18 years, and said the law would not permit the Corporation to discriminate against them, bearing in mind constitutional principles; it called these remarks a preface (para 1). The new affidavit clearly did not comply with the directions of the 10 August order, which were unambiguous (paras 2, 5). The policy had "not been implemented even to an inch" in about 18 years (para 5). Accepting a vague case without details of the lands and their present occupancy would not be in the interest of justice (para 7). At this stage the Court drew no inference that municipal officers had tried to suppress information, but said it could take judicial notice of how large tracts of municipal land had vanished from the municipal pool, including land encroached by slums and later handed to private developers, while the Corporation's own sanitary workers waited 18 years for housing (para 8). Clear orders ought to be complied with in letter and spirit (para 8).