Corporation order to demolish illegal building on Walltax road quashed

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday quashed an order dated February 5 last of the Greater Chennai Corporation directing the owner of a property on Walltax Road to stop construction work and to demolish the alleged unauthorised building.A Division Bench of Justices S Manikumar and Bhavani Subbaroyan quashed the order, while allowing a writ petition from G Krishnamoorthy of Sowcarpet.
The stop construction and demolition notice has been issued without reference to the actual state-of-affairs. “Hence, we are inclined to interfere and set aside the order,” the Bench said.

According to advocate T S Rajamohan, the land originally belonged to the Corporation. It was leased out to one Gopal Pillai. After his death in 1974, the land was in the occupation of his wife. Later it was sold. Krishnamoorthy and his wife jointly and severally occupied the land in 1978, where upon an ‘L’ shaped superstructure was made and the same was assessed for property tax.

When he approached the Corporation for effecting mutation of records in his favour, there was no response. He approached the High Court with a writ petition in 2010, which had directed the commissioner to conduct a detailed enquiry with regard to the person who was in possession of the premises.

However, no enquiry was conducted. All of a sudden, it issued a notice dated January 22 last holding that the construction on the land was unauthorised. The petitioner issued a legal notice on February 3. The Corporation issued another notice on February 5, directing the petitioner to demolish the structure.Rajamohan submitted that the existing superstructure was constructed prior to 1978 and there was no new construction at all after that. The notice was issued in a mechanical manner without application of mind, he said.

Notice to police to register complaint over idol theft in Srirangam temple
Chennai: A plea has been made in the Madras High Court for a directive to local police to register an FIR on a complaint alleging that valuable idols were stolen from Srirangam Temple in Tiruchy. Justice M S Ramesh, before whom the criminal original petition, came up for hearing last week, directed the government pleader to get instructions by March 2. In his petition, Narasimhan submitted that he had given a complaint on October 13, 2017, to Inspector of Police, Srirangam, about the theft of idols, doors and other antiquities from the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple.

As police refused to register an FIR, the petitioner sent an e-mail complaint to the Commissioner of Police, Tiruchy, with necessary material. He sent a reminder to the commissioner on October 27 and made a personal visit to his office on November 3 also. Yet, there was no action. Hence, the present petition for a directive to police to register a case on his complaint.