Finally, Pune's Sun Dew Apartment to be demolished

It became clear on Saturday that the controversial Sun Dew Apartment on Prabhat Road, built by the construction company of Girish Vyas, son-in-law of former chief minister, Manohar Joshi, would be demolished as the deadline for submitting a proposal to hand over the building got over.

Municipal commissioner, Mahesh Pathak, told reporters that the time limit for submitting a proposal to hand over the building to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) was over on Saturday. The PMC would now serve a notice to the builder for demolition of the building. The notice would be served on Monday.

The Supreme Court bench comprising Justices RV Raveendran and HL Gokhale on October 12 had ordered that the Sun Dew Apartment be either handed over to the PMC or be demolished.

The bench said in the order that the developer shall inform the PMC whether he is giving up the claim over the construction of the 10-storied Sundew Apartment in favour of PMC, failing which either the developer or the PMC shall take steps for demolition of the disputed building.

The plot of land, in the prime locality of Prabhat Road, was reserved for a primary school. For many years after the reservation, nothing happened but after Vyas entered into an agreement with the plot holder, files started moving fast. Initially, permission for construction was rejected by the PMC due to the reservation. But then reservation of the land was shifted by the state government under the chief minister, Joshi who was in-charge of the urban development department.   

The reservation was shifted first to Lohegaon and then to Mundhwa, violating many rules. Before the procedure of shifting the reservation was completed, a huge 10-storied state-of-the-art building worth Rs45 crore was constructed on the 30,000 square feet plot.

Civic activist, Vijay Kumbhar and a corporator, Nitin Jagtap had challenged the change of reservation of the plot to facilitate construction. They filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay high court in 1998, which ruled in March 1999 that the building be demolished. Vyas and others had challenged the order in the Supreme Court.