The Supreme Court-appointed panel, headed by Justice K Balakrishnan Nair, on Thursday recommended interim relief for 35 more families who have been evicted from their apartments in Maradu. Out of these, four families are eligible to get the total interim relief of Rs 25 lakh.
In the second sitting held by the panel, it recommended a total interim compensation of Rs 6.31 crore altogether for the 35 families.
Interim compensation has been recommended to 14 evicted families of Alfa Serene apartments, seven families of Golden Kayaloram, two families living in H20 Holy Faith and 12 families who were living in Jains Coral Cove. With this, the panel has given a green signal for interim recompense to 49 evicted families of the four apartment complexes in Maradu.
Meanwhile, the claim petitions of 14 apartment owners were rejected as they failed to produce the necessary documents.
A total of 326 families were evicted from the four buildings — Golden Kayaloram, H20 Holy Faith, twin towers of Alfa Serene and Jains Coral Cove — following the Supreme Court’s order to demolish the structures as they were built violating Coastal Regulation Zone norms.
Meanwhile, Crime Branch officials told TNM that three more days will be needed to complete the procedures to completely freeze the personal and company bank accounts of three apartment builders. The officials had on Wednesday started the procedure to freeze the bank accounts of Sandeep Mehta, MD of Jain Housing and Construction Ltd; Paul Raj, MD of Alfa Ventures Private Ltd and Sany Francis, the MD of Holy Faith Builders and Developers Pvt Ltd.
“Banks have asked us for three days’ time to complete the procedure. Only after that, we can say how much amount of money these accounts hold,” said an official with the special investigation team of Crime Branch that is probing the case.
Earlier on Thursday, the council meeting held at Maradu municipality witnessed some chaos as a ‘pooja’ was held inside one of the towers of Alfa Serene, which is one of the four buildings that are to be demolished. Though the government had directly put two companies – Edifice Engineering, a Mumbai-based company and Vijay Steels and Explosives, a Tamil Nadu based firm – in charge of the demolition process, the municipal council had not endorsed this officially. As per sources in the municipality, the councillors lost their temper that one of the companies had organised the pooja to mark the start of the demolition process. They were then informed that the pooja was to mark the start of a quick study of the buildings to prepare it for demolition. The council, later in the day, endorsed the decision of the government to hand over the apartment buildings to the companies.
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