Madras High Court orders demolition of shops constructed in car parking area of residential apartment complex
The Hindu
The Harrington Apartment Owners Association in Chennai has claimed that two parking slots in their building had been purchased years ago, and then converted into a commercial complex; despite their regularisation request being rejected, the shops had continued to function, the Association claimed
The Madras High Court has directed the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) to demolish two shops constructed on an area meant for car parking inside a residential apartment complex on Harrington Road in Chennai. The court has also called for a status report by March 2 on the compliance of its orders.
A Division Bench of Justices V.M. Velumani and R. Hemalatha issued the direction while disposing of a writ petition filed by the Harrington Apartments Owners Association seeking a direction to the CMDA as well as the Greater Chennai Corporation to remove the two shops being run on the car parking area of the residential complex.
The court was told that an individual, Jubaitha Begum alias Sharbunissa owned a flat on the second floor of the residential building and had been allotted two car parking slots on the ground floor. In 1999, she sold the two car parking slots alone to B. Rajendran and R. Manjula and the transaction was registered at the Periamet Sub Registrar’s office.
The purchasers of the car parking slots converted them into a commercial complex by constructing two shops without any approval and let out the shops on rent to third parties. The people who had taken the shops on rent were now running a medical shop and a fruit shop on the premises, the association complained.
Further, stating that the purchasers of the car parking slots had been taking steps to get the construction of the shops regularised for a long time, the petitioner association said, the Housing and Urban Development Secretary had rejected their statutory appeals on November 11, 2019 and yet the shops were yet to be demolished.
After taking into consideration the submission made by the petitioner’s counsel S. Sai Shankar, the judges directed CMDA to take necessary steps for the removal of the shops after issuing notices to the two individuals who had purchased the car parking slots, as well as the flat owners association.
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