Observing that a holistic approach is needed to address the menace of illegal constructions in the city, the High Court of Karnataka on Monday directed the State government and the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike to come out with a composite action plan for taking action against illegal constructions.
“Passing of order by the court would be nothing but a mere paper formality unless all the stakeholders jointly come together and prepare a composite action plan,” a division bench comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale and Justice M.G.S. Kamal observed.
The Bench made these observations during the hearing of a PIL petition initiated suo motu by the court in 2019 after noticing a large number of petitions filed by neighbours and residents’ welfare associations against individual illegal constructions across the city.
Need for official machinery
As a large number of illegal constructions, either without obtaining approval for a plan or deviating from the sanctioned plan, have been already identified, there should be official machinery available with the BBMP to take further action, like issuing of notice, hearing of the appeal against notice, issuing of notice for demolition, etc., the Bench said while noticing BBMP’s earlier statement about lack of resource to carry out demolition works.
Earlier, Senior Advocate and amicus curiae Pramod N. Kathavi pointed out to the court that the BBMP, acting on the court’s direction, had started a survey of illegal constructions, and in its report, on initial phases of the survey, submitted to the court in June 2022 had indicated the existence of thousands of buildings put up in violation of the law.
Actual demolition minimal
Mr. Kathavi also pointed out that though notices for demolition were issued in good numbers, the actual demolition is minimal, and some of the demolished illegal structures are in the nature of temporary sheds.
The Bench also recorded the submission of Mr. Kathavi that the demolition process appears to be initiated only against a handful or a few persons, who are not so economically sound, and that the actions taken are only a namesake action.
Meanwhile, the Bench directed the BBMP to inform whether it had submitted its requirement of additional staff/ officials to the State Chief Secretary as per earlier directions given by the court and what action has been taken by the Government.
