A public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Bombay High Court has sought a court directive to the Registrar of Cooperative Housing Societies to issue guidelines for the installation of electronic vehicle (EV) charging stations within co-operative housing societies.
The division bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and SG Dige, while issuing a notice to all respondents, posted the matter for further hearing on January 6, 2023.
“The present public interest litigation is necessitated owing to the regulatory and legislative vacuum of there being no guidelines regarding the installation of EV charging stations within co-operative housing societies,” said the PIL filed by Amit Dholakia and Sohel Kapadia.
“Given the immense environmental and financial advantages of EVs, the state government’s own policy prescriptions, and the central government’s policy prescriptions, it is incumbent upon the state government and the Registrar to exercise the power under the Maharashtra Societies (MCS) Act to ensure that the petitioners and other similar placed individuals are permitted to install charging infrastructure at their garages in the co-operative housing societies,” argued the petition.
The petition contents that the charging time for electric vehicles is between 3 hours to 30 hours and hence it becomes imperative for the owner of such vehicles to have access to such charging infrastructure at their residence where they can charge their electric vehicles overnight or during weekends.
The PIL has named the government of Maharashtra through the ministry of co-operatives, Registrar of Co-operative Housing Societies, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) as respondents in the case.
“When both central and the state governments are working towards creating an EV ecosystem keeping the environment in mind, guidelines about setting up EV charging infrastructure in housing societies will help people to take a plunge,” said Nishit Dhruva, managing partner of law firm MDP & Partners, who is advising the petitioners in the case.
One of the petitioners argued that a co-operative housing society denied him permission to create such charging infrastructure at his garage due to the lack of a policy allowing individual members to install their electric meters for EV charging.
He further argued that several other individuals are also facing similar issues where the housing societies have denied them permission to create a charging infrastructure in their parking areas.
In February 2019, the central government made amendments to the Model Building By-Laws (MBBL) and in Urban Regional Development Plans Formulations and Implementations (URDPFI) guidelines 2014, making provisions for establishing EV charging infrastructure, particularly in residential buildings.
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