KOCHI: Residents of Maradu apartments which are to be demolished have alleged that the banks had colluded with builders to cover up the violations while sanctioning loans. Manoj C Nair, lawyer for the residents and who also owns an apartment in Jain Coral Cove, one of the four illegal apartments, said the Crime Branch should extend its probe to the bank officials.
“We strongly suspect a nexus between banks and builders to keep us in the dark about the violations. Public sector undertakings like SBI and LIC had granted loans to residents. How can a bank like SBI support illegal construction? Before providing the loan, the legal department of the bank has to scrutinise the documents. We have filed a case with the Banks Ombudsman in Thiruvananthapuram. The Crime Branch should also probe the involvement of bank officials,” Manoj told reporters.
He said the Kerala government also has equal responsibility for rendering the residents homeless. “Had the government filed a review petition claiming that it had wrongly notified the area as CRZ III category, the matter would have been different. Even now, the government can file such a petition. To protect some of the erring officials, the government has made us homeless now,” Manoj said. He said the Kerala government is showing unwanted haste in undertaking the demolition process. The demolition should have been stalled till the curative petition is considered by the Supreme Court (SC).
“The curative petition has been entered in the SC diary as 36948/2019. When the matter is under the Supreme Court’s consideration, the government is showing undue haste to demolish the buildings immediately” he added.
Edifice Engg, Vijay Steels to carry out demolition
Kochi: The state government on Thursday finalised the list of two companies for carrying out the demolition of the Maradu flats which is slated to be completed before January 9. Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering and Chennai-based Vijay Steels and Explosives qualified the criteria fixed by the six-member technical committee. However, an official announcement in this regard will be made only on Friday after the meeting of government representatives with demolition expert S B Sarwate.