Tonsekar directed each official to pay Rs 3,000 in his personal capacity to Advocate Ratilal Mistry, the plaintiff in the case. Mistry owned the piece of land at Dattapada Road, Borivli (east), on which illegal structures had been constructed by Pushkar Jani, a trustee and head priest of the Ambaji Temple at Borivli and Jaywant Jadhav, a Dattapada resident whoreportedly owns some beer bars in Borivli. Tonsekar issued a ``stern and serious warning to the officials not to disrespect orders of the court and not to undermine the rule of law.'' She ordered that the compensation should be paid to Mistry for the mental agony caused because of the delay on April 5, when the case will be next heard.

The 480 square yard plot owned by Mistry was reserved in the Developmental Plan for gardens. About 200 sq ms of the land was also meant for road widening, which prevented Mistry from putting it to his personal use. But in April 1995, when Mistry was out of town, Jani and Jadhav took advantage of his absence and constructed eight shops on his land in a week.

Mistry alleged that the BMC failed to oust the encroachers despite several appeals. In December 1995, Mistry approached the City Civil Court. In an order on October 15, 1998, the court ordered BMC to demolish the structures. The builders managed to obtain a stay on the order. Mistry, however challenged this, stating thatthe stay was actually obtained for another structure, following which the city civil court appointed a commissioner to examine these charges.

It was found that the builders had indeed been misleading the court. Once again, the ball was in the BMC's court when they were directed to demolish the structures. But the builders went in appeal to the Bombay High Court, which upheld the lower court's ruling on February 2.

But even a month later, the BMC had taken no action on the court order. Finally, a contempt motion was issued against the BMC on March 23, and the city civil court summoned Gokhale, Patankar and Khoje on March 30. However, only Khoje turned up for the hearing today.

The court observed that although the BMC had more than five months to carry out the demolitions, it acted only after the contempt notice was issued. Observed Tonsekar, ``It appears that the commissioner and the DMC Continued consider themselves above the rule of law and an order in October 1998 which was confirmed by the HighCourt. There was no stay pending, yet, it took the BMC a full five months to think of demolishing the illegal structures.''Yogacharya Anand, president of the Forum for Fairness in Administration, which is assisting Mistry in the case, alleged that all the illegal shops had been sold for Rs 3,500 per sq ft. The shops included an Aami Milk Dairy, a cycle shop and some trading units.