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Court orders demolition of Joshi's son-in-law's buildings in Pune

The Bombay high court today directed demolition of two buildings constructed in Pune's posh Prabhat Road locality by Girish Vyas, son-in-law of former Maharashtra chief minister Manohar Joshi.

A division bench comprising Justices B N Srikrishna and Shafi S Parkar also directed the state government to order an investigation by an impartial agency into the episode and the alleged involvement of Joshi, Vyas, Urban Development Minister Ravindra Mane, former Pune municipal commissioner Ramanath Jha and other officials.

The court said action according to the law should be taken if these individuals are found guilty.

The bench made it clear that the building has to be demolished by Vyas Construction (Vyas's company). If not, the Pune Municipal Corporation will demolish the building and recover the cost from the company.

It also directed the PMC to cancel the permission for the building granted to Vyas.

But the court stayed the demolition till June 30 to allow Vyas and others to appeal to the Supreme Court.

While granting the stay, however, the judges observed that further construction is not to be carried out on the site and third-party interest is not to be created.

The bench also directed the State of Maharashtra, the PMC, former commissioner Jha, Joshi, Vyas, Mane and Vyas Constructions to pay Rs10,000 each as costs for the litigation.

The two public-interest petitions in the case were filed before former chief justice M B Shah and former justice Y S Jahagirdar. But Justice Jahagirdar resigned from the court without citing any reason and the matter came up before Justices Srikrishna and Parkar.

UNI

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