Didn’t rent out playground to school, says housing society

Bangalore: In a new twist to the row over the playground in Defence Colony, Indir­anagar,  the Defence Col­ony Co-operative Hou­sing society, claimed on Satu­rday that it had only given a letter of support to the SSB International School to repair the damage it had caused while using it.

While the school  claims to have rented the playground from the society, its President,  Col. Man­nar (Rtd), says the director of the school who dam­aged it while using it for a personal event, was only given a letter of support  to carry out the repairs at his own expense.

“The society is not receiving any rent from the school. There is no rental contract bet­ween us and the institution,”  he asserted.

The school, however, says  it has receipts to pr­o­ve it pays Rs 2.5 lakh in maintenance fee to the society. Said Srinivas, director of SSB Inter­national,  “Until the last academic year, we paid Rs 2.5 lakh as  annual maintenance fee to the school. While there is no legal agreement, the amount is a contribution from the school.”

While not denying it had received the maintenance fee, the society continued to insist it had not given the playground on rent to the school.

In another row over the playground,  a few locals have claimed that they  own part of it and have even gone to the high court to prove their point. The society has been asked to maintain status quo in the matter by the court.