HC says no to extending deadline for regularising constructions on ECR

Chennai Corporation says it has so far issued notices to 798 building owners

June 22, 2018 01:31 am | Updated 07:44 am IST - CHENNAI

A file photo of the Madras High Court

A file photo of the Madras High Court

The Madras High Court on Thursday refused to direct the Centre to extend the deadline of June 30 fixed for filing applications seeking post facto clearance for buildings that had been constructed within the Coastal Regulatory Zones (CRZ) without obtaining prior clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and G.K. Ilanthiraiyan rejected the plea made during the hearing of a batch of writ petitions related to alleged unauthorised constructions along the East Coast Road (ECR) here. The Greater Chennai Corporation has so far issued notices to 798 building owners between Neelankarai and Uthandi.

The notices were issued after the High Court on September 15 last year pulled up government officials for turning a blind eye to bungalows, resorts, guest houses, palatial buildings and farm houses constructed on the ECR in utter violation of the CRZ regulations and without obtaining building plan approvals from the authorities concerned.

In a status report filed before the court on Thursday, Corporation Commissioner D. Karthikeyan stated that the territorial limits of the civic body were expanded from 176 sq. km. to 426 sq. km. only in 2011 by annexing nine municipalities, eight town panchayats and 25 village panchayats, including those which earlier covered the ECR.

Though, now, the Corporation had issued notices to 798 building owners on the stretch between Neelankarai and Uthandi, only 98 of them had submitted their replies. Even among those who had replied, only 48 had enclosed land ownership documents and building plans and the rest had simply forwarded their reply letters without any supporting materials.

On scrutiny of the building plans submitted by the 48 owners, the Corporation officials found that just 17 of those plans had been approved by the erstwhile municipalities within whose jurisdiction the constructions had been put up and the rest of the plans did not contain either the seal of the municipalities or the planning permit number.

Field inspection

Further, a field inspection of the 48 buildings between April 9 and June 14 revealed that the 17 approved buildings too had been constructed in deviation of the building plans, the Commissioner said.

Additional Advocate General P.H. Arvindh Pandian also submitted an additional counter affidavit filed by A.V. Venkatachalam, member secretary, Tamil Nadu State Coastal Zone Management Authority, who pointed out that the Centre had amended the CRZ 2011 notification on March 6 and decided to grant post facto clearance for buildings in CRZs. The amendment made it clear that only constructions that comply with the CRZ norms would be regularised and applications for the regularisations must be backed by recommendations from the jurisdictional coastal zone management authorities. It also fixed June 30 this year as the last date for submitting the applications. After taking the status report as well as the additional counter affidavit on file, the Division Bench said that building owners on the ECR were free to get impleaded in the batch of cases and defend themselves through submission of relevant documents and photographs. The case was later adjourned to July 27 for further arguments.

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