A tall order

Even as a blanket ban issued by the Madras High Court (MHC) prevails on registering unauthorised layouts owing to the government failure in regulating them, rampant illegal constructions remain another bane behind Tamil Nadu’s haphazard development.

In fact, the enormity of the situation remains so astounding that MHC, which has been constantly prodding the State to remedy the prevailing anomaly hit out at it saying, “The situation revealed a complete failure of the system, where people seem to be making constructions as they like without any fear of consequences”. 

A report submitted to MHC by amicus curiae (impartial advisor to a court in a particular case) V Suresh in response to a public interest litigation seeking action against unauthorised construction in and around George Town area in Chennai revealed that authorities have received as many as 65,529 applications for regularisation under 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 schemes. Though 86 per cent of the applications were rejected, a mere 156 demolitions have been carried out by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Corporation (CMDA) during the past 19 years. “This clearly reveals that enforcement has been completely sparse naturally resulting in violators holding sway,” says Suresh. 

Suresh’s report further revealed that despite the dismal average of 8-9 demolitions per year reflecting inadequate action, no buildings were demolished between 2009 and 2015. Moreover, a mere two buildings were demolished in 2016 only to comply with court orders, while as many as 132 buildings were locked and sealed for violations during this time frame. He further held that “the rate of rejection of regularisation viz., 86 per cent reveals the seriousness and scale of deviations and violations. Therefore, it can be said that the action taken is not commensurate to the problem at hand.” 

For that matter, case studies provided by CMDA to MHC itself reveal as to how there remains no connect between the building plan for which approval is obtained and what gets built ultimately. Moreover, the unholy nexus between politicians, officials and builders resulting in the so -called regularisation process is said to be the crux of the matter. 

Another intriguing aspect is the insertion of section 113-C under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1971 to regularise unauthorised buildings. Though a committee headed by Justice Rajeshwaran had come up with regularisation rules and guidelines for constructions prior to July 1, 2007, the Government is yet to notify them.

In fact, the Madras High Court had recently come down heavily on the Government submission that it wanted to provide relief to owners of unauthorised constructions under Section 113-C. It had said that buildings will be regularised if they satisfy public safety norms in the light of “new technological developments”.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan on observing that the remedy under section 113 C of the Act is illusionary, unless the rules and regulations were framed there-under, granted two months’ time to frame the rules and if it didn’t, “It shall be presumed that the State government is not interested in notifying the regulations and thus, action must be proceeded forthwith in accordance with law.” 

Even as civic groups and activists have expressed displeasure over such regularisation measures as it would enable violators get away with a meagre penalty, the issue is fast turning vexatious. 

For that matter, despite both the Supreme Court and High Court striking down such repeated regularisation moves and pulling up CMDA and Corporation for failing to implement the laws of the land, official apathy and lack of political will for obvious reasons is behind such gross building deviations making a mockery of the so called State Master Plan.

Two recent case studies serve to exemplify the point about violations. At 7, Armenian Street, a building plan was obtained for stilt plus two floors. It was cited as residential building with six dwelling blocks. But following deviations from the original plan, stop work notice was issued on February 20, 2015. Notwithstanding this, an inspection on November 4, 2015 revealed that the construction had progressed and the building comprised of ground plus four floors. 

The ground and first floor were used as shops and third floor was used for residential purposes and the outer periphery walls and columns of the fourth floor were varied up to the lintel level. Following this, a lock, seal and demolition notice was issued on June 8, 2015. But interestingly, the profile of the building as on August 5, 2016 is ground floor plus five floors existing and part of sixth floor construction in progress. 

Based on this, de-occupation notice was served to five shops the same day. Failing to adhere to all notices, the applicant preferred an appeal to the government on August 19, 2016. Owing to this, action has come to a standstill, based on the pending appeal. 

In another familiar case, 119, Armenian Street, a site was subdivided into four plots and four different approvals were obtained from the Corporation of Chennai. While the plan approval obtained for each of the plots on December 27, 2014 was stilt plus two floors (part) office -cum- residential with four dwelling units, what transpired was a shocker. The four subdivided plots were amalgamated into a single site and a massive ground plus two floor commercial building was constructed. 

Based on this, stop work notice was issued on February 20, 2015 and subsequently a lock, seal and demolition notice was issued on June 8, 2015. Even as an appeal was rejected and time offered to rectify the gross deviations, it was found on May 2016 that the building has been occupied as a commercial enterprise. But then, a pending appeal has resulted in enforcement coming to a grinding halt.