Panchkula man gets ₹27.5-lakh relief for damage to home by neighbours’ construction work
Notified in 2019, stilt plus four floor policy was strongly opposed across Haryana, with one of the most vocal voices against the policy being former chief of army staff General VP Malik (retd).
A resident of Sector 4 here, whose house was damaged due to construction work in adjoining plots, will be getting ₹27.5 lakh as compensation.
A petition filed by Shantanu Singh, who himself is a lawyer, was disposed of by the Punjab and Haryana high court after settlement between the parties through which the neighbours agreed to pay him the damages.
Singh had moved the high court in September 2022 after his house developed cracks due to construction by adjoining plot holders.
He had first approached the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) against the construction by his neighbours, but complained that HSVP kept dilly-dallying the matter, allowing the damages to exacerbate.
Singh submitted that while on the one side of his house, his neighbour was carrying out stilt plus four construction, on the other side, a duplex building was coming up, causing damage to his house.
Allowing his plea, the high court had stayed the construction activity. But after a plea from one of the neighbours, seeking vacation of stay on the construction, HC had asked them to deposit ₹5 lakh with the high court registry. During the pendency of the writ, Singh and his neighbours arrived at an amicable settlement, where it was decided that the neighbour carrying out stilt plus four construction will pay ₹25 lakh as compensation to him to enable him to get the damaged house repaired.
While the other neighbour, who was raising a duplex house, will pay him ₹2.5 lakh out of the ₹5 lakh to be deposited with the high court registry and the balance ₹2.5 lakh will be returned to the depositor.
Notified in 2019, stilt plus four floor policy was strongly opposed across Haryana, with one of the most vocal voices against the policy being former chief of army staff General VP Malik (retd).
The government was forced to put it in abeyance in February 2023 amid pressure from residents. It subsequently set up an expert panel to examine the contentious issue and conducted hearings with RWAs.
Later, the expert committee had recommended that permission for such constructions shall be granted only if availability of commensurate infrastructure is certified to the satisfaction of authorities and required infrastructure augmentation is initiated by the department concerned.
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