CHENNAI: The Arakkonam Municipal Commissioner got a rap on the knuckles from Madras High Court on Tuesday for issuing a demolition notice after referring only to court orders, rather than the statutory provisions vested in him.
Once the statutory provision has been mentioned in the notice, there is no reason to put a bold heading of the court proceedings, as if authorities cannot act as per the statute, but only if the court issued an order. “What is disturbing is that this notice is issued at the level of the Commissioner of Municipality (Arakkonam) and not by a subordinate officer and at least at this level we would have expected a better application of mind,” the first bench of Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice M Sundar observed.
The bench was disposing of a writ petition from S Thiyagarajan of Arakkonam challenging a notice of December 14 last of the Municipality Commissioner directing him to remove forthwith an encroachment, a shop measuring 127 sqm on Tiruttani Road. The notice prominently mentioned at the top that it was based on March 14 last orders of the High Court and a contempt petition for non compliance.
The bench said the notice seems to have been issued hurriedly when the civic body faced contempt proceedings and to complete a mere formality to evade the rigours of contempt. “We strongly condemn this approach. We have, thus, no option but to quash the notice dated December 14 with a direction to the Commissioner to apply his mind to the notice and response of the petitioner thereto and to pass a reasoned order within a month,” the bench said.