CHENNAI: Corporation’s legal battle reaches crucial stage

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on July 1, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/corporation%E2%80%99s-legal-battle-reaches-crucial-tage/289738.html
CHENNAI: The decades old legal battle between the Chennai Corporation and Hotel Picnic, located on land leased out by the civic body, has reached a crucial phase after the Chennai Metro Rail has approached the Corporation seeking more land near the Ripon Building for constructing ancillary buildings, escalators and ventilator shafts for a metro station.

Corporation sources said a detailed hearing in the legal battle between the civic body and the hotel is likely in the next couple of weeks in the Madras High Court.

The scheduled 'detailed daylong court hearing' gains more significance after Mayor M Subramanian on Wednesday went on record stating that the prime land (where the Hotel Picnic is now located) will be put to public use soon.

Subramanian said the civic body has leased out a section of its land located near the Ripon Building to Picnic Hotel, decades ago.

Contrary to the agreement clause with the civic body, the hotel authorities have violated several conditions and constructed buildings obstructing the scenic beauty of historical Ripon Building, the Mayor said.

Though the legal battle was going on with the hotel, senior officials of the civic body during a meeting last year stated that the Picnic Hotel land, located between Ripon Building and Victoria Public Hall, could be an ideal place to construct ancillary buildings and escalators.

With the Metro Rail seeking more land, the civic body is now building its case with an intention of a final showdown against the hotel.