HC restraint on re-construction of Chennai Silks building

The Madras High Court today stayed the ongoing construction work on a multi-storeyed building for a textile showroom here on a plea alleging violation of norms in the approval of plan and raising safety concerns.

The new building of Chennai Silks is coming up in the busy T Nagar at the same location where the earlier structure of the textile major was gutted in a massive fire last year.

A bench comprising justices N Kirubakaran and Krishan Ramasamy granted the interim injunction on the construction after petitioner Kannan Balachandran submitted that 40 per cent of the work on the 8-storeyed building had been completed within 20 days of getting the approval on June 21.

It also granted an interim stay on the reclassification of the area into commercial area from residential area and directed the authorities concerned to appear in the court with related files and explain under what circumstances they granted the approval.

The bench then posted the matter to August 3 for further hearing.

The petitioner alleged that the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority had violated all norms in granting the planning permission for construction of double basements in addition to eight floors for ulterior considerations.

For a special building/multi-storeyed building, space should be created for at least to a stretch of 250 metres along the length of the road abutting the special building and 500 metres for the multi-storeyed building, he submitted.

However, the abutting road width was only 3.7 metres at the site where the under-construction Chennai Silks building was located, he said quoting a fire and rescue service report filed in the court.

Alleging that the construction activity was in violation of the national building code and rules, it also had the risk of posing grave fire safety issues for the thousands of people visiting the showroom and residents in adjoining areas.

He cited a report of the Fire and Rescue Service filed in the court saying that the firemen had found it difficult to reach the showroom to put out the blaze in May last year.

Twelve people were rescued from the seven-storied building after fire broke out on May 31. It was put out a day later and the demolition of the gutted building took several days.