Civic bodies such as the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) need not show hostility towards residents’ welfare associations by locking and sealing public buildings if vacant spaces in those buildings had been used by the residents for celebrating birthdays or for teaching yoga/music/dance to the children in the locality without any commercial motive, the Madras High Court has advised.
Justice R.N. Manjula said not all families would have the wherewithal to take private halls on rent for celebrating birthdays and other similar occasions. When their locality does not have a community hall, the residents would generally tend to look for some public space which could be used for such purposes. That, by itself, could not become a reason to lock and seal the public buildings, she said.
The observations were made while allowing a writ petition filed by Anna Nagar Western Extension Association represented by its secretary P. Vadivel. The judge accepted the arguments of the petitioner’s counsel Naveen Kumar Murthi and quashed an order passed by a Zonal Officer of GCC on February 21, 2024 asking the association to remove its belongings from a public library in the locality.
It was brought to the notice of the court that the locality earlier fell under the jurisdiction of Ambattur Municipality which on July 1, 1991 permitted the petitioner association to construct a public library on a part of land meant for a public park. Accordingly, the association constructed the library and a reading room which was subsequently taken over by the local library authority.
Since there was vacant space on the first floor of the library, the association put up a shed over there and began using it for teaching yoga, music and dance to the children of the neighbourhood and for conducting small functions. Though none of the residents raised any complaint regarding the same, the Zonal Officer on his own began issuing notices to the association since April 2022, the counsel complained.
After recording his submissions, the judge said the issue could have been solved better through talks between the association and the corporation officials instead of resorting to punitive measures such as locking and sealing a public premises. She also stated that the ward councillor concerned, also a being a resident of the locality, could have facilitated such talks rather than always concentrating on politics.
Since the Zonal Officer’s order had been taken on appeal to the GCC Commissioner too, the judge directed the latter to resolve the issue smoothly in the best interests of the local residents and after taking into consideration the observations made by her.
