The Madras High Court has made it clear that there is an order prohibiting the Southern Railway from disturbing the heritage building of Royapuram Railway Station even for any expansion works.
The First Bench of Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and R. Mahadevan made the observation while closing a PIL plea moved by advocate S. Sathia Chandran in 2013 seeking to restrain the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), and the Heritage Conservation Committee of CMDA from deleting the Royapuram station from the list of heritage buildings.
The petitioner moved the PIL plea based on a news report published in The Hindu on June 22, 2013 titled > Royapuram station may soon be history . The report stated that Southern Railway had approached the Heritage Conservation Committee, seeking the removal of the station from the list so that it could demolish the structure and undertake projects.
The petitioner said, “Though the building is small in size, it has historic importance as the oldest station in the entire sub-continent.” The petitioner contended that the building occupies only a small portion of the 72-acre station premises and termed the “insensitivity of the Southern Railway to the history and heritage of the station building” highly condemnable.
The petitioner also argued that the acceding of the request would sound the death knell to the conservation of heritage structures in the city.
When the plea came up for hearing, the Bench noted that the station was on the list and that there thus was a “mandate prohibitory against the Railways at present.” The Bench suggested that Railways could expand the station while preserving the heritage portion.
