The balwadi on a 20 X 20 sq ft plot at Juhu was being constructed by Arun Deo, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader in the BMC, from his councillor's fund. Deo told Express Newsline that his contractor received an oral order on Friday morning asking that the work be suspended immediately. However, no written order was issued.

While halting the construction, Deo dashed off a letter to Municipal Commissioner Girish Gokhale seeking his intervention. The foundation of the balwadi was laid on March 10.

The ward officer admitted that the work has been stopped for a couple of days adding that the stop-work noticewas issued following a complaint by Deepak Shroff who owned the building on the plot till it was demolished by the BMC some years ago. Shroff had approached the City Civil Court which had directed the BMC to grant him the permission to reconstruct the building.

``We need to sort out the issue before allowing the balwadi to be constructed,'' Dube said. When asked whether the ward office did not verify the records before granting permission to Deo, he said, ``It is an old case. How am I to know that some building stood there?'' adding that he realised this when he received Shroff's complaint. The BMC is now seeking the legal department's opinion in this case.

Deo has also received a notice from Shroff's lawyer Dinesh Gandhy on Friday along with the copy of City Civil court's order. He claimed that nowhere it was mentioned that the plot cannot be used for other constructions. However, Gandhy refused to speak on the issue saying he did not want to speak to the press.

The plot on which the buildingstood belongs to the collector. It was leased to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in 1966 for a period of 30 years and the lease term ended in 1995.

However, the BMC continued to keep the plot in its custody and the collector did not object to it. When Deo approached the collector for permission to construct the balwadi early this year, the collector's office did not take any objection.

The collector's office agreed in principle to allow the balwadi provided Deo would demolish it on a one month's notice if the plot was taken up for development according to Development Corporation (DC) regulations. The plot has been reserved for garden in the DC plan. Deo would also not receive any compensation for foregoing the possession of the plot.

Meanwhile, Deo in his letter to Gokhale has also alleged that the stop-work notice was issued following a telephone call from Delhi to the ward office. Sources in the ward office informed that a senior Shiv Sena MP was keen on putting a stop to theconstruction of balwadi though they failed to cite any reasons for the interference.