Citizens visit malls for leisure or amusement, not just shopping: Bombay High Court allows mall to hold ice cream festival

While permitting R-City Mall in Ghatkopar to hold a three-day ice cream festival, the Bombay High Court observed that citizens visit malls not just for shopping, but also for leisure or amusement..A Division Bench of Justices GS Kulkarni and RN Laddha opined that there is nothing objectionable and irregular about malls utilizing open spaces for organizing such limited festivals for the enjoyment of visitors of the mall. “Citizens visit malls not only for the purpose of shopping but also, for leisure or for amusement, which they would derive not only from shopping activities but also, from visiting different specialized areas created in such malls like the food area, play area, amusement/cinema, etc,” the order said..R-City had approached the High Court against an order of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) refusing to grant them a no-objection certificate (NOC) to hold a temporary ice cream festival in the mall's courtyard from April 28 to April 30.BMC refused permission stating that such commercial activity was not permissible at the open space of the mall..R-City argued that the activity is for a limited period of about three days and would involve the installation of temporary stalls. It further said that these stalls would be installed by shops that already have permanent licenses at the mall..The Bench said that Regulation 27(1)(g)(ii) of the Development Control Regulations provided no restriction on any temporary commercial activity or recreational activities.“It is only an activity where the visitors of the mall would enjoy the benefit of a variety of edibles at a common open space, which, in our opinion, is a permissible recreational activity within the meaning of Regulation 27,” it held..With these observations, the High Court directed BMC to grant an NOC to the mall to conduct the festival..Advocates Mayur Khandeparkar, Saket Mone and Devansh Shah, briefed by Vidhii Partners, appeared for R-City Mall.Advocate Pooja Yadav appeared for BMC..[Read order]