HC stays stop memo against judges’ apartment project

May 07, 2021 11:10 pm | Updated 11:10 pm IST - KOCHI

The Kerala High Court on Friday issued a conditional stay of the stop memo issued by the Kochi Corporation to the Kerala Judicial Officers’ Cooperative Society suspending the construction of a 15-storey apartment complex at Chalikkavattom for allegedly obtaining building permits after submitting falsified land documents.

The stop memo was issued on a complaint that the building permit for the apartment complex had been obtained from the civic body after manipulating land documents which showed that the land was a dry land.

Justice N. Nagaresh issued the stay order on the condition that the petitioner did not carry out any construction activity on 3.27 ares of the property which was described as ‘nilam’ (wet land).

The order came on a writ petition filed by the Society challenging the stop memo.

Travancore Builders Private Limited, which had undertaken the construction of the multi-storey residential apartment complex had commenced work in March 2019 on obtaining the building permit. The work was on the verge of completion when the corporation issued a stop memo to the Society on the grounds that the property came under the category of nilam.

The stop memo was illegal, as it was issued without following the basic principles of natural justice. The corporation should have given the petitioner an opportunity to show-cause why a stop memo shall not be issued against it, since the corporation was initially convinced of the documents at the time of issuing a building permit, the petition had contended.

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