Section 379A in The Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888
379A. [ Overcrowded dwellings. [Section 379A was inserted by Bombay 5 of 1905, Section 55.]
(1)Where it appears to the Commissioner, whether from any certificate furnished under section 379 or otherwise, that any building or any room or rooms therein used for human habitation is overcrowded, he may apply to a [ [Metropolitan Magistrate] specially empowered by the State Government] to prevent such overcrowding; and the said Magistrate, after such inquiry as he thinks fit to make, may prescribe the maximum number of persons to be accommodated in each room and may, by written order, require the owner of the building, within a reasonable time not exceeding ten days to be prescribed in the said order, to abate the overcrowding thereof, by reducing the number of lodgers, tenants, or other inmates of the said building or room or rooms, in accordance with the maximum so prescribed and to the satisfaction of the Commissioner, or may pass such other order as he may deem just and proper.(2)Where the owner of the said building has sublet the same, the landlord of the lodgers, tenants or other actual inmates of the same shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be owner of the said building.(3)Every tenant, lodger, or other inmates of the said building shall vacate on being required by the owner so to do in pursuance of any order under sub-section (1).(4)A room used exclusively as a dwelling shall be deemed to be overcrowded within the meaning of this section when the number of adult inmates is such that the amount of floor space available for each adult inmate is less than twenty-five superficial feet and for each person, under the age of ten years less than twelve and one-half superficial feet, or when the air space for each adult inmate is less than two hundred and fifty cubic feet, two children under ten years of age counting as one adult.(5)A room not exclusively used as a dwelling shall be deemed to be overcrowded within the meaning of this section when the number of adult inmates is such that the amount of floor space available for each adult inmate is less than thirty superficial feet, and for each person under the age of ten years less than fifteen, superficial feet, or when the air space for each adult inmate is less than three hundred cubic feet two children under ten years of age counting as one adult.]
