BENGALURU: In a major relief for 300 homeowners in the upcoming Dr Shivaram Karanth Layout, the Supreme Court has ordered that their houses be regularised and integrated into the BDA layout. This is the first batch to be regularised and offers hope to 1,418 applicants seeking regularisation.
The order last Thursday (November 25) follows the court-appointed Justice A V Chandrashekhar Committee submitting two reports recently, recommending the step. Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice Sanjiv Khanna gave the verdict when hearing a case between the BDA and Government of Karnataka and Others. The court said their order is in the light of recommendations made in the third and fourth report submitted by the committee on November 10 and November 23 respectively.
The committee was appointed with the objective of establishing the legality of constructions that had come up in the layout between November 26, 2014, and August 3, 2018, which could be regularised. Any construction after the cut-off date would be deemed illegal.
Directing BDA not to take possession of lands or buildings specified in the committee’s report in annexures L0001 to L0026, the court said, “The Commissioner of the BDA is directed to issue Registration Certificates to the concerned applicants in a transparent manner within four weeks from today, under the supervision of the Justice A V Chandrashekar Committee.”
A top BDA official said, “Possession certificates would be issued within four weeks to the 300 property owners.” Jayakar Jerome, a member of the committee, told TNIE, “This is just the first instalment of houses to be regularised. The committee has received 1,418 applications from those who have built structures between 2014 and 2018, within the SC-fixed deadline.”
The committee has received 6,278 applications from the public dating from December 31, 2008, till August 3, 3018, he said. “We split them into three buckets: the 2014-2018 category, pre-2014 and those who began construction before the August 3, 2018 deadline.” Detailed analysis found that a majority of residential or commercial buildings in each category have not got approval for construction.