Savarkar Sadan file on heritage status lost in 2012 Mantralaya fire: State to HC

Hindustan Times

31-07-2025

MUMBAI: The papers pertaining to the according of heritage status to Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's Dadar residence, Savarkar Sadan, were lost in the 2012 Mantralaya fire, claimed the state government in its response to the public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Bombay high court on the issue. In the 1980s and early 1990s, three floors were added to the two-storey bungalow courtesy the regime of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), which enabled developers to construct floors above existing buildings
The reply submitted to the high court says, '...further action in the present matter could not be carried out as the relevant government records pertaining to this case were destroyed in the fire that occurred on 21.06.2012 on the fourth floor of Mantralaya, where the urban development department is situated.'
The state claimed that it had taken efforts to look for and recreate the destroyed files and records from the available secondary records and sources, including correspondence with other departments and offices. 'However, despite taking all possible steps... the documents could not be traced, which seems to have caused a constraint in proceeding further with the subject matter,' says the reply.
The BMC had given its final recommendation for heritage status for Savarkar's home in August 2010, and had forwarded this to the state government's urban development department. After the fire, the civic body on July 31, 2012, through a public notice, decided to revise the draft list of heritage buildings and precincts. Savarkar Sadan did not find a place in it.
After Hindustan Times reported on May 5, 2025 that Savarkar's erstwhile residence was to be pulled down shortly to make way for a new building, a PIL was filed by Prof Pankaj Phadnis of the Abhinav Bharat Congress to revive the plea to accord heritage status.
Commenting on the state's submission in court wherein the Mantralaya fire and the civic body were blamed, Phadnis told Hindustan Times, 'This charade must end. If the file was lost in a fire, nothing stops the government from getting the papers from the BMC... instead, the government has resorted to machinations by asking the BMC to take a fresh look. The obvious intention is to benefit the builder, who would now have the locus to raise an objection if public notices were to be reissued.'
Lambasting the BJP-led government in the state, the petitioner added that he believed that the government's view was that the lot of the Savarkar family was only to suffer while everyone else made merry.
Savarkar Sadan was constructed as a two-storey bungalow in 1938 on a plot measuring around 405 square metres in Dadar's Shivaji Park. Savarkar, founder of Abhinav Bharat Society, a secret grouping of Hindutva activists, and a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha, a political party, lived here. He met several top leaders at the bungalow, including Subhas Chandra Bose in 1940, and Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte in 1948, before they left for Delhi to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi.
Savarkar's descendants continued to live in the building after his death in 1966. In the 1980s and early 1990s, three floors were added to the two-storey bungalow courtesy the regime of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), which enabled developers to construct floors above existing buildings.