Corporation puts Kamal Haasan on notice over CRZ violation

CHENNAI: Top actors, including Kamal Haasan and Ramya Krishna, are among the more than 140 people who have been served notices by Greater Chennai Corporation for alleged illegal constructions in the coastal regulation zones of Uthandi, Sholinganallur, Injambakkam and Neelankarai along East Coast Road.
After the intervention of the Madras high court, the city corporation has so far issued such notices on more than 300 buildings very close to beaches along the scenic ECR.

Besides imposing a cost of ?10,000 on the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) for its insensitive approach in the case by not filing counter affidavit despite a lapse of 15 years, a division bench of Justices M Venugopal and S Vaidyanathan also pulled up the corporation officials for issuing notices to the violators by completely ignoring the directions passed by the court to include information about the pending cases in the issue.

The issue pertains to a batch of petitions moved seeking a direction from the high court to the NCZMA and the Tamil Nadu Coastal Zone Management Authority to consider re-classification of Akkarai village and Sholinganallur panchayat on the ECR as areas under CRZ-II as per the guidelines contained in the government of India notification dated February 19, 1991.

Noticing large-scale unauthorised constructions in the prohibited areas of the costal regulation zone, the court directed corporation officials to conduct a joint inspection along with Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) authorities in the areas to find out the legality of the constructions and issue notices to the owners of such structures if found to be violative of the law.

The order specifically directed the corporation to inform in the notice residents about the pendency of the present batch of petitions.

Subsequently, the authorities issued notices to 143 people calling for the approved plans of the respective buildings. The list of house owners issued notices includes actorturned politician Kamal Haasan and other leading actors.

When the pleas came up for hearing on Monday, the bench made it clear that if the corporation commissioner did not take appropriate action against the officials who issued the notices without reference to the court order and place them in a non-sensitive post, appropriate action would be taken against him. He would also be asked to appear before the court.