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Karnataka HC stays demolition of 88-year-old Janatha Bazaar

INTACH had filed PIL challenging the government’s proposed move.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Friday in an interim order stayed the proposed demolition of the 88-year-old 'Asiatic Building’, which housed Bengaluru's first Janatha Bazaar.

German botanist and garden designer Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel, the architect of Lalbagh, had designed the building.

The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) had filed the PIL, challenging the proposal to demolish the building and construct a 14-floor commercial complex in its place.

In 1935, the Asiatic Building was inaugurated by the Yuvaraja of Mysore State, Sri Kanteerava Narasimharaja Wadiyar.

The petition pointed out that the Draft Revised Master Plan of Bengaluru 2031 designates Asiatic Building as a heritage building, which has historical, aesthetic, architectural and cultural significance for the city, and deserves to be protected and preserved.

The government approved the demolition and construction of a shopping complex in 2016.

While citing the need to preserve the building, the petition stated, “The Asiatic Building'/ Janatha Bazaar is one of the few pre-Independence buildings that has endured, and demolishing it would affect the legacy of our city.”

The 'Asiatic Building' for a while housed the Store Purchases Committee of the Karnataka government. In the wake of the reforms taken up in 1964, the Karnataka State Cooperative Consumers Federation was established to moderate consumer goods pricing. The first Janata Bazaar was set up in the Asiatic Building' in 1966.

Some of the portions of the building were rented out to other government organisations, such as the Employment Exchange, BSNL and the Mysore Silk Corporation.

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