WHO QUALIFIES: THE CUT-OFF, GOOD FAITH AND THE CRZ RED LINE

This past fortnight the Supreme Court again weighed a contested coastal-zone clearance in a prominent Mumbai matter, declining to interfere with the CRZ clearance that had been granted. UBRA is often described as a framework to save unsafe buildings — but it is not a blanket amnesty. Eligibility is limited to structures already in existence before a defined datum line. Construction that comes up after that date draws no protection at all. This single condition is what separates a remedy for past regulatory failure from a standing invitation to build illegally. UBRA distinguishes the family that bought a flat believing it lawful from the actor who knowingly raised an illegal structure. Registered agreements, tax receipts, utility bills or RERA registration establish bona fide purchase. Those who cannot document their acquisition may be held ineligible. No documentation and no willingness to pay can move certain land into eligibility. Structures on forest land, protected wetlands, CRZ areas, floodplains and other environmentally sensitive zones are excluded outright. Here UBRA runs with environmental law rather than against it. The Supreme Court's recent refusal to disturb a CRZ clearance already granted in a separate, prominent matter illustrates the same principle from the other direction: once a coastal clearance is properly granted and complied with, courts are reluctant to reopen it on a fresh challenge — but where no clearance exists at all, the CRZ bar remains absolute, and UBRA does not touch it. The three filters describe UBRA's core principle — selective legalisation, applied only where demolition would cause more human harm than the original irregularity warrants, and only where the land itself may lawfully hold housing.

UBRA सरसकट सर्व काही कायदेशीर करत नाही. पात्रता ठरते निश्चित कट-ऑफ तारीख, सद्भावनेने केलेल्या खरेदीचा पुरावा आणि कठोर पर्यावरणीय वगळणुकींवर. गेल्या पंधरवड्यात सर्वोच्च न्यायालयाने पुन्हा एका बहुचर्चित मुंबई प्रकरणात किनारपट्टी क्षेत्रातील परवानगीचा मुद्दा हाताळला. निश्चित तारखेपूर्वी अस्तित्वात असलेल्या बांधकामांनाच पात्रता. त्यानंतर उभी राहिलेली बांधकामे पूर्णतः वगळली जातात. नोंदणीकृत करार, property-tax पावत्या, वीज-पाणी बिले किंवा RERA नोंदणी दाखवणारे सद्भावना सिद्ध करू शकतात. वनजमीन, संरक्षित पाणथळ, CRZ क्षेत्र, पूरक्षेत्र व संवेदनशील विभागांवरील बांधकामे पूर्णतः वगळली जातात. तिन्ही चाळण्या मिळून UBRA चे मूळ तत्त्व सांगतात — निवडक कायदेशीरकरण, जिथे पाडकामामुळे अधिक मानवी हानी होईल तिथेच.