India, Sept. 2 -- The Bombay High Court has directed the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) to remove a fish market operating in an area marked as a road in the 1974 Development Plan (DP) and ensure that compulsory open spaces are not misused for commercial purposes.

The court passed the order while disposing of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Thane resident Pradip Chandrakant Indulkar in 2010, regarding alleged encroachment and commercial activities on a private plot.

Indulkar, an associate member of the Institution of Engineers (India), claimed that in 1982, the TMC granted permission to Unit Arsen Developers (UAD) to construct a shopping complex building on land at Panchpakhadi reserved for a municipal market. The develope...