The Madras High Court on Monday impleaded the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee appointed to check unauthorised constructions in the city as a party respondent to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) moved in connection with the recent fire accident that gutted the seven-storey building of Chennai Silks in T. Nagar.
The Secretary to the Housing and Development Department is the Chairman of the Committee. In his PIL, activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy had sought penal action against the present Housing Secretary, claiming that his inaction against such violations resulted in the fire accident. The petitioner also wanted the court to order a CBI inquiry into the actions of the Housing Secretary over the past five years.
When the plea came up for hearing before the First Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar, it was brought to the court’s notice that some other writ petitions with common and overlapping areas of concern are pending in the court. Taking note of the submissions made by several advocates and the petitioner, the Bench directed the Registry to consolidate all the writ petitions and list the pleas for hearing on July 10.