A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here alleging illegal conversion of residential premises allotted by Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) at Anna Nagar here into commercial complexes.
A.S.M. Kumar alias S. Muthukumar, a lawyer and resident of Anna Nagar, had filed the case.
He claimed that conversion of residential properties into commercial buildings especially on the 80-feet-road in Anna Nagar had led to traffic congestion and pollution in the locality.
He said that most of the commercial establishments had not provided vehicle parking space within their buildings.
Their failure had led to people using a major portion of the roadside for parking of vehicles. Consequently, the driveway gets narrowed down and blocks free flow of traffic.
Alleging that a majority of the property owners had not obtained permission from the authorities concerned for using their residential buildings for commercial purposes, the petitioner said that the Madurai Municipal Corporation too had agreed that there were many unauthorised constructions.
The petitioner had made an application to the Corporation under the Right to Information Act on November 30. Replying to it, the local body had reportedly stated that the building plan approval, electricity connection and drinking water connections were given to a majority of the buildings only for residential purpose.
Nevertheless, the local body failed to initiate appropriate action against the unauthorised commercial buildings despite receiving a specific written representation made by him in this regard on December 17, Mr. Muthukumar said and sought for a direction to the local body to act fast.
