Koramangala residents seek time to set right building violations

Koramangala residents seek time to set right building violations

The Hindu

BMP issues notices to 119 land owners and tenants

# Survey taken up to identify illegal change in land use
# A team of BMP personnel is surveying all buildings in Koramangala
# Supreme Court declines to interfere in Division Bench order

BANGALORE: Several residents of Koramangala, whose buildings have come in violation of norms, have sought time from the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP), to either demolish the illegal construction or set right the violation.

A few residents who had approached the Supreme Court against the BMP were asked to move the High Court.

The BMP, which last month took up an extensive survey of Koramangala for identifying illegal change in land use, encroachments and violation of building norms, has issued 119 notices to land owners and tenants, pointing to the violations.

The notices pin point the violations, asking both the landlords and tenants as to why action should not be taken to set the right the violations. A team of BMP personnel has been surveying all the buildings in Koramangala to ascertain the extent and nature of violation.

Court direction

The BMP action followed a direction from the High Court which took a serious view of alleged deviations from building bylaws, sanctioned plans, unauthorised change in land use and encroachments in the locality.

The court had been given a list of 87 buildings which had allegedly violated the building norms and land use.

Norms violated

A team comprising officials of the Bangalore Development Authority and BMP inspected the buildings and found that 83 of them had violated land use norms. Most of the buildings had been let out for commercial use though they were earmarked as residential in the plan.

The BMP had set up an engineering team supervised by the Joint Commissioner (East), Chief Engineer (East) and Joint Director of Town Planning. The team had in turn set up three batches to inspect the locality. The inspection commenced from July 14.

When the team reported that a majority of the buildings had violated norms, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Nauvdip Kumar Sodhi and Justice N. Kumar had asked the BMP to inspect all the eight blocks in Koramangala and report any violations.

Problems

The BMP said that at least three residents of Koramangala had moved the Supreme Court against both the BMP and the Division Bench order, but the Supreme Court had declined to interfere. It had asked them to seek redressal of their grievances from the High Court.

The BMP said it will report back to the court once it completes a substantial survey of some blocks.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka High Court, in an interim order, has stayed the BMP notices issued to some residents. Since the BMP has filed caveats in both the Sessions and High Court, it will have to be heard before any order is passed.