Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) Kerala on Friday alleged that there was a conspiracy hatched by a few in the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) that led to the Supreme Court directive to demolish the four apartment complexes in Maradu.
Urging the government to constitute a judicial inquiry to find out what led to the present situation at Maradu, S.N. Raghuchandran Nair, former national vice chairman of the confederation, said that they were not able to divulge anything more on the conspiracy at this point of time.
However, he said that the confederation was ready to furnish the details before a judicial commission. Mr. Nair said that it was an injustice to take criminal case against the builders for the drawbacks of officials and authorities like KCZMA. Registering a vigilance and corruption case and arrest of builders based on a non-existent violation was totally unfounded, he said. The Crime Branch probe had not yet brought CRZ authorities under its ambit while limiting it to the builders and a few panchayat officials alone, he said.
CREDAI representatives said that the demolition of Maradu apartments could have been avoided, if the State had proper information and had made a principled approach highlighting the facts and the history of events of CRZ and failures of mapping by the KCZMA.
The anomalies in CRZ mapping should be rectified by doing proper Coastal Zone Management Plan to protect the interests of the common man and investors, failing which thousands of other small and big buildings in the coastal towns in Kerala that were developed and substantially built up would also suffer, they said.
Builder remanded
Meanwhile, the Muvattupuzha vigilance court on Friday granted the Crime Branch probing the alleged illegal construction of apartment complexes two days’ custody of Paul Raj, the managing director of Alfa Venture Pvt Ltd. He had surrendered after his plea for anticipatory bail was rejected by the court.
