The petition that was placed before the bench of Justice N J Pandya and Justice S S Parkar is to come up for hearing on Monday, April 12 since the respondents, the counsel for the Shri Shanmukhananda Fine Arts & Sangeet Sabha, requested for time to file an affidavit.

Veena Vihar, a cooperative society with 108 flats was formed in 1953 when parking space was not a pre-requisite for housing complexes. Today, with over 60 vehicles with the flat owners, the society is facing an acute shortage of parking space. According to the petitioners' counsel V R Bhandare, the membersof the society would till recently park their vehicles on the Harbanslal Marg. But after Shanmukhanand Hall opened, the BMC introduced a `pay and park' scheme on the road and as a result, society members now have to pay every day to park their vehicles.

The petition points out that matters become worse when cultural programmes are held at the Shanmukhananda Hall which has a seating capacity of 2,800. With no parking facility inside the Hall premises, the `pay and park' facility on such occasions is reserved for the visitors.

To compound the problem, rest of the road near Veena Vihar Cooperative Society is occupied by vegetable vendors and it also has been earmarked a no-parking zone. The petition has expressed fears that with Shri Shanmukhananda Fine Arts and Sangeet Sabha's plans to build another `tower complex' in the hall premises, the shortage of parking space was likely to only worsen.

Shanmukhananda Hall which was destroyed in a fire in 1992 was recently restored and inaugurated in 1998. Thepetitioners have pointed out that the BMC which passed the plans for the reconstruction, could have ensured that enough space was left for a parking lot. The petitioners have complained that they are having to pay for, what essentially is, Shanmukhananda Hall's problem.

Stating that the petitioners were tax paying citizens having a right to a parking area, the Veena Vihar Cooperative Society has prayed that the court direct the BMC and the Traffic Police to carve out a section on the road for their parking needs or revoke the sanctioned development plans of the Hall to stop it from functioning.