High Court comes to the rescue of South City residents

Its direction ensures razing illegal structure and development of tree park

The Karnataka High Court has come to the rescue of residents of South City Group Housing Apartments, Bannerghatta Road, as two of its recent orders have ensured demolition of an illegal structure put up by the builder besides making the civic authorities guarantee that the developer provides civic amenities as per the approved plan.

South City Group Housing Apartment Owners’ Association had moved the court complaining in its petition that the civic agencies — Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) — failed to take action against unauthorised structure built by the builder on a portion of land earmarked for a park as per the plan approved by the BDA.

L&T Ltd., which developed the land and built the apartment after entering into a joint development agreement with land owner Dinesh Ranka, had constructed a building on a portion of land earmarked for park and was using it as its marketing office and model apartment.

While the BDA had not fulfilled its promise of demolishing this illegal structure, the BBMP, after the area was handed over to it in June 2011, proposed to use this illegal building for itself as per the Revised Master Plan 2015.

However, during the hearing of the petition, Justice Ram Mohan Reddy had viewed seriously the move of the BBMP to regularise the structure for its use besides pulling up officials of the BDA for not preventing such illegal construction.

Following these observations by the court, the BDA ensured that the builder demolished the illegal structure.

Later, the court also noticed that the BDA, in its revised plan and work order issued on September 25, 2006 for the South City project, had imposed eight conditions, including developing of a tree park on 5 acres and 27 guntas of land, which was relinquished to the authorities, and handing it over to the authorities concerned.

‘File report’

Following this, the court, in its recent order, also asked the BDA to ensure compliance to these conditions by the builder-developer and file a compliance report to the court by January 31, 2013. A few other important conditions include providing rainwater harvesting system and providing dual piping system for using tertiary treated water for non-drinking purposes.

Meanwhile, the court has disapproved of the plan approved by the BBMP to fence the 5 acres and 27 guntas of land at a cost of Rs. 39.1 lakh while terming the cost as “bloated figures” and directed the BBMP not to spend such huge sum merely for providing fence.