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Journalism of Courage
Mumbai, Jun 17: The large-scale illegal extensions to China Garden, the three-star restaurant at Kemps Corner, have got some more breathing time with municipal commissioner K Nalinakshan announcing he would give the restaurant’s owner Nelson Wang reasonable’ time to get his act together before taking any action.
The civic chief failed to give any specific deadline he would give the owner, though there is a clear ruling from Bombay High Court that illegal extensions should be pulled down by the corporation. The order given by the HC in 1997 said: “In the past several years, the plaintiff (Wang) had succeeded in avoiding demolition which in our opinion is blatantly unauthorised. There is no end to the plantiff making successive representations to different authorities.”
The rulingwas given in reponse to an appeal filed by Wang on November 12, 1997 where he had pleaded that the court restrain BMC from demolishing the extensions.
The controversy began in 1991 when the civic administration revoked the licence of the restaurant. The original structure stands on a 73.3 sq m plot, while the actual area used by the restaurant is 528.6 sq m. In 1994, the then municipal commissioner Sharad Kale along with fire brigade officials visited the restaurant and declared the extensions illegal. The fire brigade also declared the building hazardous and Kale ordered the illegal extensions should be demolished in 30 days.
But before this decision was taken, the restaurant owner had already approached the HC and was fighting a battle with the civic authorities. After the decision, they approached the Supreme Court which in turn directed the case to HC.
But even though the court ruled in favour of the corporation, the urban development department headed by then chief minister Manohar Joshi in Marchlast year directed that BMC should give 45 days’ time to the owner of the restaurant to allow them to check the possibility of exploiting the Floor Space Index (FSI) and taking advantage of Transfer Development Rights (TDR) of the original structure. But according to civic authorities, there is a TDR facility only for heritage structures in the D ward. As the restaurant is not identified as a heritage structure, it is not entitled to TDR, and the extensions will therefore have to be demolished.
