SC clears path for Adani’s ₹36,000-cr Motilal Nagar revamp, rejects residents’ plea

The Supreme Court has paved the way for the Adani Group’s ₹36,000-crore redevelopment of Mumbai’s sprawling Motilal Nagar housing colony, dismissing a last-ditch legal challenge by residents opposing the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority’s (MHADA) plan.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta rejected the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by residents of Motilal Nagar 1, 2 and 3 in Goregaon (West), effectively upholding the Bombay High Court’s March 6 order that gave MHADA a green light to move forward with the project through a construction and development agency (C&DA). The top court’s order removes the final legal roadblock to one of the largest state-facilitated housing transformations in Mumbai.

Spanning 143 acres in the city’s western suburbs, the Motilal Nagar project — awarded to Adani Properties Pvt Ltd through a competitive bidding process — will rehouse nearly 3,700 families and add about 33,000 homes to MHADA’s public housing stock. Under the terms of the project, each eligible resident is slated to receive a 1,600 sq ft built-up flat, along with new commercial units earmarked for non-residential tenants.

The Supreme Court ruling comes just days after the Bombay High Court on July 25 also rejected a review petition filed by the same group of residents, who had argued for the right to self-develop under provisions of Maharashtra’s Development Control and Promotion Regulations (DCPR). They contended that redevelopment should be undertaken only with the consent of at least 51% of society members, even if MHADA issued a no-objection certificate.

However, MHADA, backed by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, maintained that it is the lawful owner of the land and the project had been accorded special status by the Maharashtra government. Mehta told the court that waiting for collective consent would cause “indefinite delays” in rehabilitating thousands of residents, and stressed the public benefit of a faster, centralized approach.

Earlier this month, MHADA signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Adani Group to begin work on the seven-year project. The initiative will transform 5.84 lakh square metres of land and hand over nearly 4 lakh square metres of developed area to the housing authority.

Notably, Adani Realty is also leading Mumbai’s headline-grabbing Dharavi Redevelopment Project. The dual undertakings cement the conglomerate’s growing footprint in urban transformation and public housing partnerships in Maharashtra.

In March, the Bombay High Court had dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) against alleged illegal construction on the Motilal Nagar land, noting that the project’s scale and complexity made it unviable for fragmented, society-led development. That judgment was later challenged by the residents, culminating in the now-dismissed appeals.

With both the High Court and Supreme Court siding with the state, the Motilal Nagar redevelopment appears finally set to move from blueprint to ground-breaking.