HYDERABAD: A division bench comprising Chief Justice Anil Ramesh Dave and Justice Ramesh Ranganathan on Thursday restrained demolition or alternation of the heritage building housing Monty’s Bar and Restaurant in Secunderabad. The order was passed on a writ petition filed by the Forum for a Better Hyderabad challenging the Government of Andhra Pradesh’s decision to remove the building from the list of heritage buildings.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh had notified 137 buildings in Hyderabad as heritage buildings, including Monty’s Bar and Restaurant. But a GO issued this year deleted the iconic building, located in Park Lane in Secunderabad, from the heritage list.
The Writ Petition, filed by O M Debara, Secretary of the Forum for a Better Hyderabad (FBH) says that efforts to develop the site were being made for the last two years, including proposals to delete the building from the list.
The Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC), which is a statutory committee of the HMDA vested with the powers to deal with the issue of heritage buildings was consulted on this issue. In 2007, the HCC rejected the delisting proposal.
The FBH alleges that the real estate lobby was behind the move to delist the building.
The building that houses the ‘proletarian bar’ is over 100 years old. It is located on prime property at the intersection of Park Lane and Sarojini Devi Road in a busy commercial area in Secunderabad. Monty’s is to Hyderabad what the Coffee House is to Kolkata. The building was constructed between 1880-90 by a Parsi and then served as a bar for the British.
It has a European style facade with deep roofs and gothic windows.
“The building is a landmark for the people of Secunderabad and losing it would be akin to destroying the architectural beauty of Secunderabad,” says M Vedakumar, President of Forum for a Better Hyderabad. Vedakumar added that the issue here was not whether the building housed a bar or not, but that it could be demolished if it lost its heritage status. “It can be turned into a library or any other public utility, but the developer went straight to the government instead of heeding the HCC’s recommendations,” he said.
The writ petition says that the government approached the HCC with a fresh proposal for development work on the site which was again rejected. The government then informed the HCC in a letter on January 12, 2009 that the proposal was being dropped. But just a week after, the government issued a gazette notification on January 19 declaring that the building had been deleted from the heritage list and soon after issued a GO. According to FBH, the action of the government is illegal and at the behest of real estate developers.
