India, Sept. 18 -- The Bombay High Court on Tuesday dismissed a clutch of petitions filed by residents of the Vikhroli Parksite Municipal Colony, who had refused to vacate the tenements allotted to them even after retirement from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The petitioners claimed that the civic body had, via a circular in 1989, agreed to convert the premises from leave and licence to ownership basis, but the court felt this was a tactic to delay their eviction.

While the court dismissed pleas filed by six individual petitioners from the Vikhroli Parksite Municipal Colony, its order could affect up to 90 such petitions in all, the BMC's lawyers said.

The petitioners, former BMC employees and their heirs, had moved cour...