Mumbai, 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 court challenging an eviction notice dated September 29, 2021 and a city civil court order dated February 1, 2024, which dismissed their appeals and rejected their pleas to lead additional evidence in the case. The petitions had a "chequered history", justice Gauri Godse noted in her 62-page order. Notices to vacate the tenements were first issued to the petitioners in 2006-07. In response, they had cited a September 1, 1989 circular, claiming the BMC had agreed to convert the premises to ownership basis after redevelopment. In 2010, the BMC had withheld one-third of their retirement benefits as they refused to vacate their premises. In January 2017, a division bench of the high court had ordered the petitioners to vacate the premises within three months to receive their pending retirement benefits. The Supreme Court too had dismissed their appeal against the high court order in May 2017. Subsequently, on September 29, 2021, the BMC's inquiry officer had issued a notice to the petitioners to vacate the premises. In November 2021, the petitioners had filed an application to bring on record documents which pre-dated the 1989 BMC circular and which were not part of the petitions before the division bench of the high court. In the latest round of litigation, the heirs of former BMC employees had challenged the city civil court's order rejecting their plea to present evidence under section 53A of the Transfer of Property (TP) Act to show that they were entitled to protect their possession of the premises. Section 53A of the TP Act refers to "part performance", under which there has to be a contract for the transfer of an immovable property and the transferee can take possession of it in part performance of the contract. The petitioners argued that the foundational document for seeking protection under section 53A of the TP Act was an April 24, 1985 commissioner's report on conversion of municipal tenements on leave and license to ownership basis. Dismissing the petitions, justice Godse said she found substance in the arguments of the BMC's lawyer, Som Sinha, that the "filing of (the) application to lead additional evidence and raise a plea of section 53A and seek an order of remand is an attempt to delay the implementation of the eviction order and continue to illegally occupy the structures". There was no written contract for transfer of the property between the BMC and its former employees residing in Vikhroli Parksite Municipal Colony, the single judge bench said. "...in the absence of any contract to transfer the structures on a permanent basis, the petitioners' possession cannot be held as in part performance of any contract to transfer the structures," justice Godse observed....