Madras High Court quashes DTCP proceedings permitting high rise towers on location meant for clubhouse

A Division Bench of the High Court also sets aside a single judge’s order imposing costs of ₹500 each on 239 residents for filing a case against DTCP’s revised approval

The judgment was delivered while allowing a writ appeal filed by Chennai Hiranandani Residents Welfare Association at the House of Hiranandani in Egattur. 

The Madras High Court on Monday quashed the proceedings issued by Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) permitting a builder to make a change to the sanctioned plan for a residential township and construct two high rise towers on a location originally earmarked for a clubhouse.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy held that DTCP should not approve any change to the original plan without the consent of two-third of the flat owners in each of the seven existing residential towers in phase II of the township.

The judgment was delivered while allowing a writ appeal filed by Chennai Hiranandani Residents Welfare Association (CHRWA) at the House of Hiranandani in Egattur. The appellant had challenged an adverse order passed against it by a single judge of the High Court on July 4, 2023.

The Division Bench set aside the single judge’s order in its entirety including imposition of costs of ₹500 on each of the 239 members of CHRWA for having filed a writ petition against the DTCP approval and obtaining an interim order preventing the builder from constructing the two new towers.

The Bench led by the Chief Justice made it clear that Hiranandani Developers Private Limited could approach the flat owners in all seven existing residential towers in Phase II of the township, obtain the consent of two-third of those owners and then make an application to DTCP for revision of the sanctioned plan.

The orders were passed after Senior Counsel K. Ravi, assisted by advocate Rahul Balaji, brought it to the notice of the court that the builder had constructed seven towers named Amalfi, Anchorage, Bayview, Edina, Oceanic, Sinovia and Tiana in phase II of the township after promising a separate clubhouse for them.

All seven towers were constructed as per a plan approved by the DTCP in 2016. However, on November 19, 2020, the builder obtained approval for a revised plan for construction of two more residential towers named Octavius and Verona on the location that had been earmarked for a clubhouse, they complained.

Mr. Ravi argued that such revised plan approval ought not to have been granted by the DTCP without the express consent of two-thirds of the 1,174 flat owners in the seven existing towers in phase II of the township and the argument found favour with the judges in the Division Bench.