The Indian Express: Mumbai: Thursday, 29 May 2025.
Behind this sweeping clean-up lies a determined, nearly decade-long battle by Vaibhav Thakur, a 45-year-old driver from Thane whose family owns ancestral land in Erangal village, Madh Island.
Earlier this month, when
veteran actor Mithun Chakraborty received a show cause notice from the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for allegedly carrying out illegal
construction at his Madh Island bungalow, it drew attention to a larger,
quieter crackdown along Mumbai’s fragile western coastline, stretching from
Versova to Borivali.
In recent weeks, the BMC has issued over 100 notices and razed nearly 30 unauthorised structures in the ecologically sensitive Madh Island, a popular spot in north Mumbai for film shoots and weekend retreats.
Behind this sweeping clean-up lies a determined, nearly decade-long battle by Vaibhav Thakur, a 45-year-old driver from Thane whose family owns ancestral land in Erangal village, Madh Island.
Thakur’s fight began in April 2016 during a routine visit to his family’s 2,400 sqft plot, where he discovered encroachments and an under-construction bungalow owned by Rupa Bharat Mehta, wife of businessman Bharat Mehta. Blocked by Mehta’s security guards from accessing his plot and shocked to see new residential structures coming up in an area governed by strict Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules, Thakur began a campaign to reclaim his plot.
Under CRZ norms,
especially in sensitive zones such as Madh Island, new construction is
prohibited unless it is essential public infrastructure. Yet, bungalows were
being built, often for commercial uses, particularly film shoots that fetched
lakhs in rent.
Thakur began by documenting the encroachment on his plot and filed multiple applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. “I was working as a driver in a media house by day, and at night I would be online, learning about CRZ rules, RTI procedures, and land laws,” he says.
His activism prompted the BMC to issue a notice to the Mehta family, who defended the construction by producing an old map indicating a bungalow on the site since before the 1960s. This was a crucial detail since bungalows that predate the inclusion of their areas under BMC jurisdiction (early 1960s) are exempt under CRZ rules.
Thakur, who had grown up in the area, responded by filing RTIs with the City Survey Office (CSO), the authority responsible for maintaining historical land records. In 2018, the CSO confirmed that no structure existed on the land before the 1960s.
In February 2019, he filed another RTI request with the CSO, this time asking for pre-1960 maps of the area. The reply this time contradicted the first response, showing construction on what was officially designated agricultural land.
“I thought somebody at the CSO must be fabricating and forging official records of the maps. When I brought this to the attention of the CSO, initially, there was no response. However, around the same time, digitisation of old maps was taking place in Mumbai and during this process, the CSO itself found discrepancies in its own maps,” says Thakur.
This culminated in an FIR in 2020 against unnamed agents, landowner and CSO staff responsible for forged maps, followed by a second FIR in 2021 naming bungalow owner Mehta for allegedly submitting forged maps. Notably, no government official was initially named, something Thakur protested as a cover-up.
Thakur didn’t stop there, going on to file multiple FIRs and seeking to inspect land record maps that showed the existence of buildings that came up pre-1960. He went on to uncover 865 allegedly falsified entries across Madh Island, Bandra, Vile Parle, Chembur, Goregaon, Borivali and Malad. A third FIR followed, again against agents, landowners and office staff allegedly responsible for forged maps. But once again, no name was mentioned.
“These FIRs were mostly eyewash. Real action was missing. That’s when I started approaching political leaders,” Thakur says.
The issue was brought up in the state Assembly in 2022, prompting the formation of an independent committee to investigate the allegedly forged documents and identify those responsible. The committee’s report confirmed that the papers submitted for constructing bungalows on and around Thakur’s plot were indeed forged.
But when no police action followed, last year, Thakur filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, demanding a “proper investigation”. On October 23, 2024, a Bombay High Court bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj K Chavan, while seeking quick investigation in the case, observed, “The complainant has a legitimate expectation that once the C.R. [crime record] is registered, the same will be taken to its logical end, expeditiously. This legitimate expectation cannot be ignored.”
The High Court then ordered the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Mumbai Crime Branch to investigate the four FIRs registered in connection with the case. The SIT has since arrested over 20 individuals, including Deputy Superintendent Shambhuraj Wabde and Deputy Land Records Officer Meena Pandhre.
On March 10 this year, the issue was again raised in the Assembly by BJP MLCs Vikrant Patil and Praveen Darekar.
Darekar said, “This question has been raised in the Assembly for the past five years. We cannot back the rich and powerful and take away rights of the poor… If some poor person erects a slum, the entire machinery is activated. Here you have film stars, industrialists and influential people creating illegal structures but not a brick is demolished.”
Revenue Minister Chandrashekar Bawankule responded, “While some government officials have been part of this racket, one has to congratulate the complainant, one Vaibhav Thakur, who tired of no action being taken, filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court…”
Announcing the suspension of Wabde and Pandhre, the minister added, “The clerks under them would take the maps from the offices, forge them to show structures on them and replace the same.” He said that maps of areas under four BMC wards, including Madh Island, had been forged in this manner to enable structures to come up in CRZ areas.
Bawankule said the government would ensure that structures that have come up illegally in CRZ areas would be demolished.
Following this, the SIT submitted a list of “forged maps” to the BMC, which launched a drive to demolish illegal constructions in Madh Island and surrounding areas. An SIT officer confirmed that the list of plots with forged maps was handed over to the BMC for further action.
BMC P North ward officer Kundan Valvi said, “Based on the list provided by the Crime Branch we have issued notices to illegal bungalows and also carried out demolitions. While notices have been issued to 101 bungalows, demolitions at 28 structures have taken place.” The notice to actor Mithun Chakraborty was part of this crackdown.
Last month, the bungalow on Thakur’s plot was finally demolished. “I am a happy man now. I don’t think people who built bungalows in violation of laws thought their structures would be demolished. In order to show that maps were forged in our case, I had to prove the scale at which it was happening. Hence, while it started out as my own fight, we had to include all such cases.”
But Thakur insists his fight is not over yet. “While they have demolished the bungalow, the foundation has not been removed and the accused have hired bouncers who don’t let me access my own plot. I will approach the authorities again,” he says.
Behind this sweeping clean-up lies a determined, nearly decade-long battle by Vaibhav Thakur, a 45-year-old driver from Thane whose family owns ancestral land in Erangal village, Madh Island.
 |
| The bungalow was demolished by the BMC last month. (Express Photo) |
In recent weeks, the BMC has issued over 100 notices and razed nearly 30 unauthorised structures in the ecologically sensitive Madh Island, a popular spot in north Mumbai for film shoots and weekend retreats.
Behind this sweeping clean-up lies a determined, nearly decade-long battle by Vaibhav Thakur, a 45-year-old driver from Thane whose family owns ancestral land in Erangal village, Madh Island.
Thakur’s fight began in April 2016 during a routine visit to his family’s 2,400 sqft plot, where he discovered encroachments and an under-construction bungalow owned by Rupa Bharat Mehta, wife of businessman Bharat Mehta. Blocked by Mehta’s security guards from accessing his plot and shocked to see new residential structures coming up in an area governed by strict Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules, Thakur began a campaign to reclaim his plot.
 |
| Vaibhav Thakur |
Thakur began by documenting the encroachment on his plot and filed multiple applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. “I was working as a driver in a media house by day, and at night I would be online, learning about CRZ rules, RTI procedures, and land laws,” he says.
His activism prompted the BMC to issue a notice to the Mehta family, who defended the construction by producing an old map indicating a bungalow on the site since before the 1960s. This was a crucial detail since bungalows that predate the inclusion of their areas under BMC jurisdiction (early 1960s) are exempt under CRZ rules.
Thakur, who had grown up in the area, responded by filing RTIs with the City Survey Office (CSO), the authority responsible for maintaining historical land records. In 2018, the CSO confirmed that no structure existed on the land before the 1960s.
In February 2019, he filed another RTI request with the CSO, this time asking for pre-1960 maps of the area. The reply this time contradicted the first response, showing construction on what was officially designated agricultural land.
“I thought somebody at the CSO must be fabricating and forging official records of the maps. When I brought this to the attention of the CSO, initially, there was no response. However, around the same time, digitisation of old maps was taking place in Mumbai and during this process, the CSO itself found discrepancies in its own maps,” says Thakur.
This culminated in an FIR in 2020 against unnamed agents, landowner and CSO staff responsible for forged maps, followed by a second FIR in 2021 naming bungalow owner Mehta for allegedly submitting forged maps. Notably, no government official was initially named, something Thakur protested as a cover-up.
Thakur didn’t stop there, going on to file multiple FIRs and seeking to inspect land record maps that showed the existence of buildings that came up pre-1960. He went on to uncover 865 allegedly falsified entries across Madh Island, Bandra, Vile Parle, Chembur, Goregaon, Borivali and Malad. A third FIR followed, again against agents, landowners and office staff allegedly responsible for forged maps. But once again, no name was mentioned.
“These FIRs were mostly eyewash. Real action was missing. That’s when I started approaching political leaders,” Thakur says.
The issue was brought up in the state Assembly in 2022, prompting the formation of an independent committee to investigate the allegedly forged documents and identify those responsible. The committee’s report confirmed that the papers submitted for constructing bungalows on and around Thakur’s plot were indeed forged.
But when no police action followed, last year, Thakur filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, demanding a “proper investigation”. On October 23, 2024, a Bombay High Court bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj K Chavan, while seeking quick investigation in the case, observed, “The complainant has a legitimate expectation that once the C.R. [crime record] is registered, the same will be taken to its logical end, expeditiously. This legitimate expectation cannot be ignored.”
The High Court then ordered the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the Mumbai Crime Branch to investigate the four FIRs registered in connection with the case. The SIT has since arrested over 20 individuals, including Deputy Superintendent Shambhuraj Wabde and Deputy Land Records Officer Meena Pandhre.
On March 10 this year, the issue was again raised in the Assembly by BJP MLCs Vikrant Patil and Praveen Darekar.
Darekar said, “This question has been raised in the Assembly for the past five years. We cannot back the rich and powerful and take away rights of the poor… If some poor person erects a slum, the entire machinery is activated. Here you have film stars, industrialists and influential people creating illegal structures but not a brick is demolished.”
Revenue Minister Chandrashekar Bawankule responded, “While some government officials have been part of this racket, one has to congratulate the complainant, one Vaibhav Thakur, who tired of no action being taken, filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court…”
Announcing the suspension of Wabde and Pandhre, the minister added, “The clerks under them would take the maps from the offices, forge them to show structures on them and replace the same.” He said that maps of areas under four BMC wards, including Madh Island, had been forged in this manner to enable structures to come up in CRZ areas.
Bawankule said the government would ensure that structures that have come up illegally in CRZ areas would be demolished.
Following this, the SIT submitted a list of “forged maps” to the BMC, which launched a drive to demolish illegal constructions in Madh Island and surrounding areas. An SIT officer confirmed that the list of plots with forged maps was handed over to the BMC for further action.
BMC P North ward officer Kundan Valvi said, “Based on the list provided by the Crime Branch we have issued notices to illegal bungalows and also carried out demolitions. While notices have been issued to 101 bungalows, demolitions at 28 structures have taken place.” The notice to actor Mithun Chakraborty was part of this crackdown.
Last month, the bungalow on Thakur’s plot was finally demolished. “I am a happy man now. I don’t think people who built bungalows in violation of laws thought their structures would be demolished. In order to show that maps were forged in our case, I had to prove the scale at which it was happening. Hence, while it started out as my own fight, we had to include all such cases.”
But Thakur insists his fight is not over yet. “While they have demolished the bungalow, the foundation has not been removed and the accused have hired bouncers who don’t let me access my own plot. I will approach the authorities again,” he says.
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