CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has shown green signal to the government to demolish/alter a portion of Selvapathy Chettiar park on Strahans Road at Perambur for widening of adjacent roads.
Since public interest was not affected in taking over a portion of the park and widening the adjacent road was in public interest, there cannot be any impediment, the first bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan said.
The bench was disposing of a PIL from M Ramakrishnan, area secretary of CPI (M) in Thiru-vi-ka Nagar, seeking to quash an order of September 3, 2015 of the Municipal Administration and Water Supply department and to restrain the authorities concerned from demolishing or altering the park.
The bench, however, directed the CMDA and Landmark Barracks Project Private Limited in T Nagar, the builder, to maintain the park, without any hindrance to public.
Further, it has been affirmed that the park will be used only as a park and it will not be used for any other purposes. The total area of the park, ie. 2,704 sq.m is not reduced. It has also been assured that the relocated park will have facilities such as a children play area, walking area, adult exercise area, yoga centre and a volleyball court.
Since a policy decision has been taken by CMDA to widen the roads, the government, in exercise of its powers, relaxed the Building Regulation 28(2)(C) relating to minimum requirement of 18 m road width. It is a policy decision and hence the same cannot be interfered with.
In such circumstances, the petitioner’s contention that the exemption granted to the builder under theTN Town and Country Planning Act is illegal, deserves only to be rejected, because the CMDA had already issued orders to widen the roads in six areas.