CHENNAI:THE Commissioner of the Chennai Corporation has been directed by a division bench of Madras High Court to take action against the officials, who had issued warning notices to 138 persons, including actors Kamal Hassan and Ramya Krishnan, who had made constructions in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) along ECR, without understanding earlier orders of the court.
Originally, a batch of PIL petitions were filed in the High Court in 2001-2003 for a direction to the Coastal Zone Management Authorities in New Delhi and Tamil Nadu to consider re-classification of Akkarai village, coming under the Sholinganallur panchayat, as CRZ-II as per the guidelines contained in the Union government’s notification dated February 19, 1991.
When PIL petitions from Suresh Krishna and others came up on February 1 last, the bench of Justices M Venugopal and S Vaidyanathan directed the corporation, which was impleaded by the bench as a party-respondent in the petitions, to inform residents in the area about the pendency of the writ petitions before the High Court so that they also can get impleaded as parties in the case, if they are interested. The left-out residents cannot at a later point of time contend that they were not given any opportunity of being heard, the bench had said.
When the matter came up on Monday, the bench was told that the corporation officials had issued notices to 138 persons, alleging that they had put up structures without planning permission and in violation of the sanctioned plan in Uthandi and Sholinganallur. It also called for objections from them.
An agitated bench observed that the authority, which had issued the notices, had completely ignored the orders of this court. Whether the order was flouted wilfully or unintentionally can be decided at the appropriate stage. “When there is a specific direction by this court, it is the duty cast upon the authorities to mention about the pendency of the writ petitions in the notice or by separate notice, in order to enable the parties to appear before this court, as the place is a CRZ,” the bench said.It also stated that if the Corporation Commissioner did not shift these officials to non-sensitive posts, appropriate action will be taken against him.