November 19, 2025: Pagdi tenants from across Mumbai gathered at Azad Maidan on Tuesday to demand long-pending reforms in the redevelopment of cessed and non-cessed buildings, highlighting how thousands of families continue to live in unsafe, century-old structures. Among them were Jagdish and Ravi Mulchandani, a father-son duo from Marine Lines, who have spent years fighting for the redevelopment of their pagdi building, Kalyan Bhavan. Despite securing favourable orders from both the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court, they were forced to watch the top four floors of their building being demolished in July.
Their struggle mirrors that of residents in more than 13,000 cessed buildings across the island city, many of whom remain locked in protracted battles between landlords and tenants. Frustrated by stalled proposals, repeated repairs, eviction threats, and legal delays, the Pagdi Ekta Sangh organised the protest to push for policy clarity and protection of housing rights.
“Redevelopment is a human rights issue,” said Sangh president Mukesh Pendse. “We lack quality of life in our old cessed structures built before the 1940s. Our homes are barely 100 to 150 sq ft with no lifts, and toilets outside the homes. Building collapses are not uncommon. Above all, there is the constant insecurity of losing our rightful homes.”
Tenants detailed how landlords allegedly use eviction suits, refusal to accept rent, delays in repairs, and neglect of cess payments to weaken tenant rights and manoeuvre buildings into the C1 ‘dilapidated’ category—often resulting in forced evictions and loss of bargaining power.
The Mulchandanis had invoked Section 79(A) of the MHADA Act, which allows redevelopment proposals to be taken up by tenants if the landlord fails to act within six months. “Despite all this, our redevelopment is still crawling along,” Jagdish said.
Pendse added that Section 103(B) of the Act, which allows tenants to become owners by paying 100 times their monthly rent, has been stuck in the Supreme Court for 33 years. He urged the state to issue a Government Resolution to enable redevelopment across pagdi buildings, stressing that “the right to life comes before the property right.”
