A home in the heart of Cochin, the commercial capital of Kerala, was a dream Saira Banu nurtured for years. This dream came true in 2007 when she booked a flat at Golden Kayaloram, a 15-storey building standing tall on a 19-acre plot of land in Maradu Panchayat of Ernakulam district.
But one fine day, 12 years later, the world around her came crashing down.
On May 8 this year, the Supreme Court directed demolition of the entire building, housing 40 flats, citing violations of laws relating to coastal regulation zone (CRZ).
This came as a shock to Saira Banu and other families like hers in Golden Kayaloram, who are on the brink of losing their dream homes.
Saira Banu, a resident of Flat 2-B, says, “We invested our entire life’s savings to buy this house. For 12 years, no authority ever made a whisper of an objection that our building falls in the coastal zone. In fact, the only water body near our building is a man-made canal separated by a public road. Authorities have told us that a canal is exempted under the CRZ notification. Then why is our building being demolished?”
Commodore (Retd) Mathew Varghese, president of the Golden Kayaloram residents association and whose family was among the first to move in, says, “We are shocked at the decision of the Supreme Court. It has been passed without hearing us or noticing the fact that we do not fall in the CRZ category. Our lawyers told us that the court clubbed our case with that of three other residential buildings in the vicinity — Holy Faith Builders, Alfa Ventures and Jain Builders. These projects were given show cause notice in June 2007 for CRZ violations. But that is not the case with us as we were served notice from Maradu Municipality for zonal violations under the Kerala Municipal Building Rules. There was not a whisper of CRZ.”
A closer look at the claims of the residents and the records show that construction for the Golden Kayaloram project started in 1995.
The CRZ Management Plan was prepared by the Kerala Government a year later — in September 1996. By then, the project had obtained no-objection certificate from the Maradu Municipality for construction. There is a municipality school adjoining this housing project and several buildings have come up subsequently in the vicinity.
Thomas Kariath, secretary of Kayaloram Residents Association, feels the court has been misled. He says, “Anybody visiting the area will get a clear picture that our building does not violate any law, otherwise how does one explain the 9000-odd structures constructed within a one-kilometre radius from our building.”
“This is a developed urban area and if at all CRZ were to apply, we will fall under CRZ-II category, which permits such construction. But the mistake has been committed by the Enquiry Committee constituted by the court. This committee never visited us or spoke to us and wrongly placed us in CRZ-III category without any enquiry. As a result, our land has been declared a ‘no-construction area’, which is impractical. Now even the court has passed a decision without hearing our side. We are constrained to knock the doors of the Supreme Court as natural justice requires we must be heard once.”
Varghese, who is also the president of the Golden Kayaloram Residents Welfare Association, has moved a curative petition along with 17 other residents seeking an opportunity of hearing from the top court before court’s order is implemented.
Advocate EMS Anam, who is leading the residents’ case in the top court, said, “The Enquiry Committee has played a fraud on the court and we want that the court must order an investigation into how such a miscarriage of justice took place.
The curative petition has been filed by residents of Golden Kayaloram project alone and not by residents of the other three projects as this project stands on a different footing and got wrongly clubbed with the rest.”
The Supreme Court has not yet fixed a date for hearing the curative petition. However, Anam got intimation from the Supreme Court Registry that the case is to be listed next week.
The petition will be heard in chambers by a bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justices SA Bobde and NV Ramana besides the two judges who passed the demolition order.
The 40-odd residents maintain their faith in judiciary and believe that the wrong done to them will be undone.