Chennai: Civic body order on demolition of Walltax road property set aside

Chennai: The Madras high court has set aside an order of the Chennai corporation, which directed the owner of a property on Walltax road to stop construction and to demolish the alleged unauthorised construction.

Allowing a petition filed by G. Krishnamoorthy of Sowcarpet, the owner of the property, a division bench comprising Justices S. Manikumar and V. Bhavani Subbaroyan, quashed the order dated February 5, 2018.

Pointing out that the stop construction work and demolition notice has been issued without reference to the actual state of affairs, the bench said, “We are inclined to interfere and set aside the order.”

According to Krishnamoorthy, originally the land in question belonged to the corporation. Subsequently, it was leased out to one Gopal Pillai and after he died in 1974, the land was in occupation of his wife. In 1978, the petitioner and his wife jointly and severally occupied the land and an ‘L’ shaped superstructure was made. The property was assessed to property tax. As there was no response from the corporation when he approached it for effecting mutation of records, he approached the High Court and the court had directed the Corporation Commissioner to cause a detailed enquiry with regard to the person who was in possession of the property. However, no enquiry was conducted. But, suddenly, the corporation issued a notice stating that the construction on the land in question was unauthorised. He sent a legal notice on February 3. While so, the corporation issued the present February 5 notice directing him to stop construction work and to demolish the alleged unauthorised construction. The existing superstructure was constructed in 1978 and there was no new construction thereafter. Therefore, the notice was issued in a mechanical manner.