SC restrains Kottayam Mun from demolishing houses

In a rare gesture, the Supreme Court on Sunday restrained the Kottayam Municipality in Kerala from demolishing about 21 houses located in the post office road. A vacation Bench of Justices C K Thakker and L S Panta held an emergency sitting to pass the order on a writ petition filed by the aggrieved residents. According to the petitioners, the Municipal authority had planned to demolish their houses on Sunday without initiating any acquisition proceeding as required under the law. The Bench, while, restraining the municipality from demolishing the houses or evicting the residents, asked civic authority to file their response within four weeks. The residents moved the apex Court after the Kerala High Court had on Saturday refused to interfere with the proposed action of the municipal authority. This is the second time the Court has held a sitting on Sunday, a public holiday, to decide a matter. Earlier on 30th September last year, a Bench headed by Justice B N Aggrawal had held an emergency hearing on a Sunday to restrain the DMK government in Tamil Nadu from organising a state-sponsored shut-down on October One. The ruling DMK-led combine had planned to go ahead with the 1st October state-wide shut down on the Sethusamudram project issue.

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