Sandip Manjrekar
My mother has purchased a house from Mhada way back in 1970 as she was govt servant. The society was formed earlier & then members were incorporated in it. The problem I want to share with you is about prolonged negligence of leakage due tempering & structural changes in bathroom of my upper floor owner in 2004-constant leakage throughout the bathroom-toilet-some part of kitchen for last 10-11 years.
My mother approached CHS committee n number of times & they in turn mislead her that building become old to repair & such leakages are common in nature. She made complaints but CHS committee & other members put pressure on her not to complain. Complaints were accepted without acknowledgement & refused if asked for acknowledgement. She raised in AGM too but powerful members suppressed her voice. The upper floor member was part of committee in every 3 years turn. My mom was having long chronic arthritis & cough problem.
The yellowish dirty water fell all over the bathroom toilet & was difficult to stay there. This made hygienic dangerous to full family members of us. In addition to this ceiling fell down in night 3.30AM nearby my brother & his wife. They were luckily escaped. We, unwillingly, had to leave our room & shifted to rented room in nov 2009. We are staying on rent as of today. My mother was died in Nov 2011. I had applied for transfer in my name according bye-law 34. For the last 3 years, they were denying me to get membership, had misplaced my submitted transfer papers.
This was done deliberately for not to approach any other authorities by me. I made n number of complaints to them on leakage & transfer issue. Finally I approached deputy registrar of R-north in Kandivali, Mumbai. They responded with strange communication asking CHS committee to settle with me & inform me. I immediately contacted them asking for clarification on this. They responded with leakage, structral changes is in BMC juridiction. I approached BMC R-central ward, logded complaint to inspect structural changes & instruct the owner to as per original approved plan.
Here is the problem of structural change in the bathroom. The upper floor member removed existing door adjacent wall & proposed new wall-door structure inside of the bathroom. This bathroom area was reduced & part of abstracted bathroom area was incorporated in kitchen. This was done for keeping washing machine. Now original nhani trap & outlet connection to down take pipe line of waste water comes out of new bathroom area. The new bathroom’s outlet was unable to dispose water inside the bathroom quickly as there is 2 feet gap between new outlet & nhani trap.
New wall was proposed on open slab without having structural beam below it. That made heavy load on my bathroom ceiling slab, thus n numbers of cracks developed everywhere in it. The water leaked exponentially & fell everywhere in my bathroom-toilet. I made every water proofing attempt from my side but all failed because of waterproofing damages & cracks in my upper floor’s bathroom. I made 3 complaints to BMC’s assistant Commissioner.
I am approaching daily there for last 3 months. I approached local police stations. I filed RTI in BMC office. I approached registar office once again at Kandivali where I was told that this office of deputy registrar is not answerable for mhada plots. When I asked why I was informed on day 1 & why did you respond to my CHS, they had no answer. I approached MHADA’s concerned area division, gave complaints to exec Engineer of Borivali & mhada’s deputy registrar of societies. The Secretary has been threatening me to drop my complaints, & further told me that structural change is their proprietary to decide.
He said that the society will handle & fight with BMC & manage them. The society had never addressed my complaints, never asked upper floor member for restitution of his bathroom as it was, never inspected or allowed me to inspect the upper floor room. I had demanded reply , inspection reports but got nothing. Due to my several complaints, Society asked me to submit xerox copies of my transfer papers, printed my name as member of monthly service tax bill. The transfer generally takes place in AGM. I posted request in last AGM in Oct 2014 which was denied on reason of lack of papers at that time.
I raised this transfer & leakage issue with last 5 years photographs, videos in AGM. I raised about structural changes which was suppressed in that AGM. Further Soc put false entry about my complaint in AGM’s minutes that leakage restarted which was stopped. I made objections in writing & asked society to put whatever I said. I asked fitness certificate of my room. Soc didn’t reply on every issue till date. The secretary of Society is threatening me/ I made complaint to DCP of my zone 2 days back.
I am praying for my damage charges along with compensation of my rent. Due to powerful contacts of my society office barriers, BMC is not paying attentions to my grievances. I informed BMC that most members of my society had done similar structural changes due to which building’s condition is in dangerous mode. Still no reply. Finally I wrote BMC Commissioner yesterday with all evidences/communications with local ward office.
I want to approach court? How? Please advise me. I have the evidences of photographs/videos/ letters/ complaints since 2009.
I C Naik
CHS IS DECLARED TO BE A SERVICE PROVIDER TO ITS MEMBERS BY CONSUMER COURTS. FILE A COMPLAINT SIGNED BY YOU AND NO ADVOCATE REQUIRED FOR DIRECTING THE CHS TO ATTEND TO DEFICIENCY IN SERVICE AND PAY DAMAGES FOR NOT ATTENDING ALL THESE YEARS. DISTRICT CONSUMER COURT IS IN BANDRA. THIS IS THE LAST RESORT TO GET JUSTICE.