Grand Walk mall put on notice

Bylaw violations

Shivani Bhakoo and Rajneesh Lakhanpal

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 17

The building branch of the Municipal Corporation has served a notice on the owners of Grand Walk (Gurdeep Jujhar, who is said to be close to the Badal family) regarding the “illegal” sixth floor of the mall. The notice was served on the owner by the ATP, Zone D, yesterday.

Three days’ time has been given to the owners to remove the illegally constructed floor on their own or else the MC will be forced to take action as per law, and during action, if there are any damages, the owners will be held responsible for the same. The notice says the floor construction was non-compoundable, for which no permission was sought by the owners. A leading pub is being run on the floor.

It was also learnt that the MC has filed a caveat in the case, so one-sided orders are not issued. It was filed with the Civil Judge, Senior Division.

Meanwhile, some tenants, including Brighteous Education Pvt Limited and Jasbir Singh, owner of R2P, who also have their establishments on the sixth floor of mall, have pleaded that they should not be made to suffer on account of a dispute between the owner of the mall and the MC. The case has been adjourned till August 22 for hearing arguments. Law Officer of MC Ashok Bajaj has filed a reply in the case.

After the removal of inter-locking tiles from a chunk of land (allegedly a green belt) by the MC, work to plant samplings on the land has been started by the civic body officials.

Earlier, the issue of alleged encroachment on MC-designated green belt measuring 3,000 square yard was highlighted by the Lok Insaf Party leader, Simarjit Singh Bains, around five days ago. Officials of the MC had gone to take “action” against the violation but they had to return without doing anything as SAD leaders objected to the move. The leaders had said action could not be taken without notice, and secondly, the MC staff had come to take action on a holiday, which was against law.