CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the demolition of an unauthorised wedding hall in the first floor of a building in Velachery.
Describing the attempt of the 11 tenants in the ground floor to stall the demolition as a ‘proxy litigation’ a Division Bench of Justices KK Sasidharan and P Devadass said that this was filed on behalf of the building owner, who had given an undertaking in the Supreme Court to demolish the marriage hall on or before January 1, 2015, but flouted it deliberately.
The charge against the owner was that though he was permitted to construct five shops and some residential units on the ground and first floors respectively, he constructed 19 shops on the ground floor and converted the first floor into a marriage hall by changing the use of the floor from residential to commercial.
While the CMDA issued a demolition notice on June 10, 2005, the Madras High Court ordered its demolition on January 23, 2014. The owner approached the Supreme Court and on his undertaking that the entire illegal construction would be demolished by him on or before January 1, 2015, the apex court modified the HC orders.
The owner, thereafter, without demolishing the illegal structure, started filing writ petitions through his tenants.