In a stern warning, the court instructed the principal secretary of the Urban Development Department to monitor implementation of its earlier order to demolish over 850 illegal structures in Ulhasnagar, and report to it by January 24.

It also warned the bureaucrat that he would be held responsible if the court’s order was not implemented by the Ulhasnagar Municipal Commissioner.

The Maharashtra government, under pressure from Ulhasnagar’s mafia dons, had buckled and proposed to issue an ordinance regularising all the illegal structures in the township, originally home to thousands of Sindhi refguees from Pakistan.

But state governor S.M. Krishna refused to sign the ordinance and sought clarifications from the government.

He had urged the government not to issue an ordinance as the matter was sub judice.

Local leaders of all the four major political parties in Maharashtra, including the ruling Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena, have been involved in putting up illegal buildings in Ulhasnagar.

The police have also claimed a nexus between the local politicians and the mafia.

Ulhasnagar legislator Pappu Kalani, who has served several years in jail, and is also charged with serious crimes including murder, has been hobnobbing with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh over the past few days, pushing him to issue an ordinance to regularise the buildings.

Thousands of middle-class residents of Ulhasnagar, who over the years paid large sums to buy apartments, would be out on the roads if the court order to demolish the 858 buildings is carried out.

Most local politicians, however, have been maintaining a low profile over the past few weeks, fearing a public backlash.

The former Municipal Commissioner of Ulhasnagar, who had gone about demolishing some of the buildings, was virtually forced to go on leave by politicians.

The state government has sent in para-military troops to the township, about 50 kms north-east of Mumbai, to maintain law and order.

Both Deshmukh, and NCP leader and deputy chief minister R.R. Patil, have been trying to defend their action of ramming through an ordinance to regularise the structures. They claim that the situation in Ulhasnagar is unique, as the Sindhi refugees who had resettled there after Independence were not aware that the builders had violated urban development norms.

However, the court said yesterday that the move to introduce an ordinance was tantamount to contempt of court. The court had ordered the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation, the mayor of the civic body is Kalani’s wife, to demolish the illegal buildings way back in April last year.

A former top bureaucrat, Nandlal, who was then the principal secretary, and is now the state's election commissioner, had indicted political parties and corporators in a scathing report on the illegal buildings that had come up in Ulhasnagar.

However, the state government, instead of acting on his report, has been trying to protect the gangsters and their political backers. The court has now asked the government to submit the Nandlal committee report, and initiate immediate action by demolishing all the structures.