PUNE, SEPT 4: Rejecting a petition by Live Oak Resort, Mumbai, the Bombay High Court has declared that two additional storeys built by the petitioners for its Hotel Ravine building in Panchgani are ``totally unauthorised'', thereby clearing the way for the Panchgani Municipal Corporation to take suitable action.The petitioner had challenged the notices served by the municipal council in August 1998 and March 1999 against the unauthorised construction in the Hotel Ravine building.The division bench of the High Court comprising Justice A P Shah and Justice B H Marlapalle went into the details and ruled that the petitioner has built an extra floor and moreover, instead of a basement, a ground floor. The court therefore declared two floors of the hotel building as unauthorised.The Panchgani Municipal Council in 1994 had sanctioned the building plan comprising a ground plus a single storeyed structure with a basement. In 1995, the petitioner applied for extra floor space available to three star hotels according to a government circular in 1971. The municipal council referred the matter to the town planning directorate of the State Government and the director, town planning, gave his clearance in June 1995 for grant of extra FSI.In the meantime, the Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG), an NGO, filed a public interest writ petition in the High Court in 1997 seeking its intervention to arrest large scale violation of building byelaws and deforestation on Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani plateau and the high court appointed a committee under the then divisional commissioner Arun Bhatia to ascertain the extent of violation and following the submission of its report, directed the municipal councils of the two towns to take action against defaulter landholders.Panchgani Municipal Council accordingly served its show cause notice on the petitioner in March 1998 and directed that the use of basement for residential purpose be stopped. The civic body also demanded to know how extra floors were built without sanction. On receipt of a reply from the petitioner, the municipal council held that the building in fact had a ground plus three floors and directed the petitioner to demolish the two extra unauthorised floors.The division bench while disposing off the hotel owner's petition, said that since the benefit of extra FSI contemplated by the government for three star hotels was not specifically incorporated in its development control rules by the municipal council, the petitioner could not avail of it.The court rejected the submission by the counsel of the petitioner for regularisation of the extra construction on the plea that the director of town planning of the State government had given his clearance for extra FSI, that the High Court in disposing off BEAG writ petition had ruled that the benefit of extra FSI already given by the civic bodies was not to be disturbed and that the petition had already spent on the construction of the extra floor.
