A public interest writ petition has been filed in the Madras High Court to restrain authorities concerned from deleting the Royapuram railway station from the list of heritage buildings in phase-I prepared by the CMDA and the Heritage Conservation panel.
A second bench before which the PIL from advocate S Sathia Chandran came up for hearing on Wednesday, ordered notices returnable in two weeks.
The PIL’s interim prayer was to restrain the Southern Railway GM from carrying out any repair or renovation work, including painting of the building. According to petitioner, he came to know through a newspaper that the Southern Railway officials had approached the Heritage Conservation Committee for removal of the Royapuram railway station building from the list of the heritage buildings so as to enable them to demolish it and undertake some other projects. The building was of historic importance as the oldest station in the entire sub-continent from 1856.