INDIAN NATIONAL TRUST FOR ARCHITECTURAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE Vs. CHENNAI METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition has been filed in public interest by the Indian National Trust for Architectural and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), a nation wide non-profit membership organisation set up in the year 1984 to protect and conserve India's vast natural and cultural heritage. The present public interest litigation is for protection of the Bharath Insurance Building from being demolished without applying the provisions of Rule 22 of the Development Control Rules for Chennai Metropolitan Area, 2004.

(2.) The Bharath Building, which is presently owned and rented out by the Life Insurance Corporation, is a landmark building recognised as a symbol of heritage conservation's losing battle in the city and State. The history of the building may have to be set out at this juncture. The Bharat Building's story goes back to 1868 when W.E. Smith, a pharmacist, arrived in Madras and, finding enough pharmacies and more in business in the city, proceeded to Ooty where he set up shop. The success of the Ooty pharmacy and other branches in the Blue Mountains made Smith decide not only to look at Madras again, but also set up a shop the city would not forget. On the site that became Bharat Insurance's, he set up facilities that enabled W.E. Smith's to describe itself as "wholesale and manufacturing druggists... opticians, dealers in surgical instruments... and makers of aerated waters." When business grew, Smith's wanted not only more built-space but also a building in keeping with the image it had gained, as South India's leading pharmacists. And so work began in 1894, on a building that was to be inaugurated in 1897 as Kardyl Building, headquarters of the firm that now described itself as "W.E. Smith & Co Ltd.". A triangular building with its peak flattened, Kardyl Building was designed by J.H. Stephens of the Madras P.W.D. and he let his vision of Indo-Saracenic architecture run riot in it. Domes, spires, 100-foot minarets, arches and verandahs blended the Mughal with the Ottoman, the Hindu and the European Classical in a fantasy that at its inauguration was described as "a palatial structure... ten times the size of what was occupied originally... one of the sights of the city... a far greater show than any other building on Mount Road." Within, its main feature was a magnificent 60-foot by 40 showroom. It also provided rooms for doctors and dentists on its first floor facing Mount Road, and for its European assistants facing General Patter's Road. It even ran a cafi and a beer bar! And in its rear compound was its aerated water factory. When competition - especially from its great rival across the street, Spencer's (more about anon) - increased, Smith's sold its business, building and all, to Spencer's in 1925. Whereupon that growing giant incorporated Smith's pharma business into its own and rented out all the space, including the showroom. In 1934, Spencer's finally found a buyer for the building, Bharat Insurance that had been established in Lahore in 1896 by Lala Harikishenlal. Bharat was taken over by the Dalmia's in 1936 and when life insurance was nationalised in 1956, the numerous buildings the various life insurance companies owned in the country - including the Bharat Building - were taken over by LIC, which became one of the biggest property owners in the country. But before that happened, in the triangular garden in front of the old building was raised incongruously, in the art-deco styling of the time, a new, near contiguous block to the design of Prynne, Abbott and Davis, the leading Madras architects of the day. This was called the Bharat Insurance Building; the old Kardyl Building had never really changed its name but had begun to be referred to as the Bharat Building. -- vide "The Towers of Assurance", The Hindu dated 6.8.2003.

(3.) One of the finest examples of Indo-Saracenic architecture in the country, the Bharath Insurance building has been listed as a Grade-A Heritage Building as per INTACH listings based on a nation-wide listing standard detailed in the draft heritage regulations formulated by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, in June, 1995. The building is presently owned and leased out to tenants by Life Insurance Corporation, the third respondent herein. In the year 1998, the third respondent initiated a process of eviction of tenants in this building on the grounds that the building was unsafe for occupation due to its dilapidated condition. A notice warning the tenants therein of the risk of injury/damage to the property was posted in prominent parts of the building. When the petitioner learnt that a plan to demolish the building was under consideration, the Convenor of the petitioner-Trust approached the Chairman of the third respondent; the Director of Town and Country Planning, Chennai; the Chief Planner, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), Chennai, expressing their apprehension regarding the destruction of what the petitioner describes as a building having beauty, grandeur and uniqueness. The Government of Tamil Nadu had issued a Government Order in the year 1999 requiring the CMDA, the first and the second respondents, to persuade owners of heritage buildings against demolition thereof and not to issue demolition permits. There was a meeting, but the third respondent expressed dissatisfaction over the rental returns, and since the returns were barely sufficient to meet the costs towards maintenance, the respondent was not interested in retaining the building. According to the petitioner, the third respondent had actually restored all the heritage buildings in its possession in other cities and it is only with regard to this building that the step to demolish it has been taken. It is in these circumstances that the present writ petition has been filed.