The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner to disconnect electricity supply to all hotels and restaurants that had failed to get their licences renewed on submission of no-objection certificates from the police after assessment of the availability of vehicle parking facilities.
Justices M. Venugopal and S. Vaidyanathan passed the interim order on a batch of cases, including a public interest litigation petition filed in 2014, accusing many popular hotels and restaurants in the city of operating without adequate parking facilities.
The judges made it clear that, in future, the corporation should grant licences for new hotels and restaurants in the city only if they comply with the parking requirements under the second master plan drawn by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in 2013.
They recorded the submission of senior counsel P.S. Raman, representing an association of 797 restaurants in the city, that the 2013 master plan mandates every restaurant to provide one car parking space for every 50 square metres of the dining area and one two-wheeler parking space.
Earlier, Additional Advocate-General C. Manishankar submitted a report on behalf of the corporation commissioner and stated that out of 2,806 licensed hotels and restaurants in the city, the corporation had renewed the licences of 2,445 establishments alone on production of NOCs from the police department.
Providing a zone-wise break up of the number of shops whose licences had been renewed, he said, zone XI (Teynampet) topped the list with 457 licences having been renewed there. It was followed by zone V (Royapuram) with 369 licences, zone X (Kodambakkam) with 347 licences and zone XIII (Adyar) with 275 licences.
In so far as the rest of 361 hotels and restaurants that were yet to get their licences renewed, the AAG said they could not legally conduct business due to the expiry of their licences. However, any action against them could be taken only after physical verification and after ascertaining whether they were continuing business, he added.
Accepting his submission, the judges directed the officials to inspect the establishments at the earliest and disconnect electricity supply to those which were run without renewal of licence. They ordered that a status report on the action taken against such illegal hotels and restaurants should be filed in the court by July 30.
