Now, a similar legal battle has taken a fresh turn in neighbouring Ghaziabad. The Allahabad High Court has ordered the demolition of two towers at the Gulmohar Greens housing society. It has also directed the removal of two additional floors from four other towers.
The demolition of the Supertech twin towers in Noida in 2022 became a landmark case in India’s fight against illegal construction.
The court has set aside an approval granted by the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) to regularise the disputed construction. The ruling came in petitions filed by homebuyers and the Gulmohar Greens Residents Welfare Association (GGRWA). The demolition costs will be recovered from the builder as arrears of land revenue. The court has directed the district administration and police to assist GDA officials during the operation. The court further ordered the registration of an FIR against the promoter within two weeks. The investigation must be conducted by an officer of at least the rank of Additional Commissioner of Police. Despite the cancellation, construction continued. The court also held GDA officials responsible for their role in the matter, finding that they had colluded with the promoter. Homebuyers challenged that approval in court. Excluding that land left the project without the required FAR to justify the latest approval, the court found. It also held that the compounding process could not be used repeatedly to regularise the same violations or bypass mandatory approvals. The Gulmohar Greens ruling brings back memories of the Supertech twin towers case in Noida. The court found that the construction violated building regulations and that the revised plans had been approved through collusion between the developer and Noida Authority officials.
It has also imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on the builder and directed the police to register a complaint or first information report (FIR). The court has directed the demolition of towers 27 and 28. It has also ordered the removal of the ninth and tenth floors of towers 16, 17, 18 and 19 within two months. The builder must deposit Rs 25 lakh with the residents’ association within a month of the judgment. GDA has also been directed to pay Rs 50,000 to each petitioner in one of the cases within two months. The dispute dates back to the housing project’s original approval in 2006. The plan covered 34 towers and 904 flats on land in Karhera village, near Mohan Nagar in Ghaziabad. The project ran into trouble after officials at Hindon Air Force Station objected to the inclusion of land acquired by the Union government in 1962. The original building plan was cancelled in July 2010 after questions were raised over the ownership details submitted by the developer. GDA subsequently approved revised plans in 2011 and 2015 under its compounding provisions, which allow certain building violations to be regularised. The builder later added floors to four towers and constructed towers 27 and 28. GDA approved a further compounding plan on December 18, 2024. The High Court found that the developer had included 4,560 square metres of Air Force land in the calculation of the project’s floor area ratio (FAR). In August 2021, the Supreme Court upheld an Allahabad High Court order directing the demolition of the 40-storey towers at Supertech’s Emerald Court project. The towers were demolished on August 28, 2022, after a prolonged legal battle. (With inputs from Deepak Gambhir)
Their negligence, it said, had caused considerable hardship to homebuyers and forced residents to spend heavily on a prolonged legal battle.
