The Supreme Court has down heavily on 39 illegally constructed hotels and resorts on the protected elephant corridor land in the Nilgiris hills in Tamil Nadu.
The court has ordered the state to seal 27 resorts within 48 hours and asked owners of the remaining 12 to produce documents to prove they have permission to carry out business in the region.
A Supreme Court bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta passed the order after the collector of Nilgiris district informed the court that the hotels and resorts had no approval from the authorities and the 27 had got permission for building residences but had converted these into resorts.
As none of the 27 resort owners or their lawyers was present in the court to counter the finding of the collector, the court ordered that their properties should be sealed. The apex court, however, allowed the remaining 12 to furnish documents within 48 hours to prove they had the requisite approval to carry out commercial activities on the protected land.
In her report, collector J Innocent Divya said all resorts were illegal and the owners had constructed a total of 309 buildings. One of the resorts, hotel Monarch Safari Park, belonged to former Bollywood star Mithun Chakraborty who was granted permission to build a house for residential purpose but he started using it as a hotel.
The amicus curiae in the case, advocate A D N Rao, backed the court order and said water and electricity connection should be immediately cut off. He added that the resorts violated numerous sections of the forest, building and panchayat Acts with impunity.
In her report, the collector also mentioned that 78 unapproved houses on Patta land and 289 other houses had encroached upon government land. The court said it would deal with these illegal constructions in its next hearing.
