Society’s counsel calls fiat mala fide, vows to challenge it in high court
In a scathing indictment, the ministry of environment & forests has ordered the demolition of the 31-storey Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society building within three months. The ministry said the scam-tainted project in Mumbai’s plush Colaba precinct was “unauthorised” and violated the spirit of the Coastal Regulations Zone (CRZ) Notification, 1991.
“The unauthorised structure built should be removed in its entirety and the area should be restored to its original condition,” the ministry stated. If the society failed to comply with the order, “the ministry will be constrained to enforce this direction”, it added.
A senior Maharashtra government official told Business Standard: “We will examine the environment ministry’s order and discuss a future course of action at a meeting to be convened soon.”
According to an agency report, Satish Maneshinde, counsel for the Adarsh society, said the order would be challenged in the high court. “I think it is totally mala fide, and we will challenge it as and when we get a copy of the order,” he said.
An environment ministry source said the order was issued to Adarsh society on Saturday, but only made public on Sunday. When asked by Business Standard why the order had been served over the weekend, Environment & Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh refused to comment. He also declined to elaborate on the order, saying details were available on the ministry’s website.
Accepting a report by environment impact assessment division advisor Nalini Bhat, the ministry said the Adarsh society had been give enough time to respond to a November 12, 2010, notice asking why the building’s illegal floors should not be demolished.
The Adarsh society had been formed to provide flats to widows of soldiers killed during the Kargil war. But of the 103 members, only two were family members of Kargil martyrs, while the remainder were politicians, bureaucrats and senior defence personnel.
The ministry’s order comes at a time when members of the society have approached the Bombay High Court challenging the revocation of an occupation certificate by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, disconnection of water by BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation and snapping of power by the BrihanMumbai Electric Supply & Transport. The court recently asked the environment ministry, the defence ministry and the Maharashtra government to file their affidavits.
The ministry considered three options for the Adarsh building: Removal of the entire structure, since it is unauthorised and had no clearance under the CRZ Notification; removal of part of the structure in excess of floor space index that might have been allowed had requisite permission been sought from the appropriate authority; takeover of the building by the government for a public use to be determined later.
“However, I have decided on option one,” said Ramesh.
“The fact that there may well be other cases of similar violations provides no grounds for mitigating the penalty attracted by such an egregious violation as that by Adarsh society. Any other decision would have diluted the strong precedents that have been set in judgements of the Supreme Court and different high courts,” he added.
“Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society has violated the very spirit of CRZ Notification, 1991, by not even acknowledging the need for clearance under this notification. Ignorance of law can never be an excuse for non-compliance,” Ramesh said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.
The Adarsh scam claimed its first victim last year in the form of Ashok Chavan, who was forced to resign as Maharashtra Chief Minister after reports surfaced that his relatives, including late mother-in-law, owned flats in the society. Top bureaucrats have also faced the axe, most notably Ramanand Tiwari, Maharashtra’s chief information commissioner, and Subhash K Lalla, Maharashtra human rights commissioner and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s secretary.
