Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the Muthupettai town panchayat, Thiruvarur district, to demolish the construction, designed to offer namaz (prayer) and run a Madrasa, in violation of the planning permission and if no action is taken, initiate disciplinary action against those responsible for not taking steps to demolish the building and any major punishment should be imposed on them, which should be reflected in their service records as a black mark.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan, who gave the directive, also said if no action is taken against those persons responsible for demolishing the construction, the person, who is liable to take disciplinary action should be dismissed from service.
The judge dismissed a petition from P. Abdul Azeez and K. Sathick Basha, President and Treasurer of the Tamil Nadu Thavheed Jamath Muthupettai Branch respectively, which sought to quash an order of the Muthupettai town panchayat, which cancelled the sanction for construction.
According to petitioner, after obtaining necessary approval for constructing a superstructure on their land measuring 2,400 sq.ft, they had completed the basement work and when they were erecting the ground floor, a stop-work notice was issued and later cancelled the sanction.
The panchayat submitted that the petitioners submitted an application to construct ground and first floor on the land. Following complaints, the executive officer of the panchayat visited the place and found that the construction was designed to offer namaz and run a Madrasa and hence the present order was passed.
The judge said it has been categorically stated in the stop-work notice that the planning permission was obtained for the construction of a residential house and not for any jamath/prayer hall/madrasa. When there was a specific plan accorded for construction of a residential house, the petitioners cannot deviate and hence the panchayat was right in issuing the stop-work notice and thereafter passing the impugned order of cancellation of planning approval. Proceeding with construction and claiming investment of huge amount on the same cannot be a ground to permit the construction of superstructure to stand there, the judge added.
