New Delhi, June 25 (IANS) The Jhankar banquet hall and restaurant in the Asiad Tower at the Asian Village Complex would continued to be sealed as the vacation bench of the Supreme Court Friday declined to hear the matter, saying that it could only be heard by the three-judge forest bench.
‘If we were satisfied that the matter was so grievously urgent, we would have heard it,’ the vacation bench of the court, headed by Justice R.M. Lodha and comprising Justice A.K. Patnaik told senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi, asked the court to consider if the monitoring committee had exceeded its power in ordering the sealing.
The banquet hall and restaurant was sealed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) June 16 on the instruction of the apex court-appointed monitoring committee on land use, for making unauthorised commercial use of the green belt around the Asiad Tower.
The court’s retort came when Rohtagi said that forest bench was not sitting for last six months. ‘If the green bench will not sit does that not mean I will not have recourse to justice?’.
At this, Justice Lodha said: ‘Heavens will not fall if you wait for one week’.
The court said that it would have intervened if the applicant was put to some hardship or his liberty was being challenged or the sealed structure faced an imminent treat of demolition.
Justice Lodha said that ‘discipline demands’ that since this matter concerns the forest bench, it should be heard by it only.
Rohtagi said that it was a commercial enterprise that was purchased from the Delhi Development Agency (DDA) 13 years ago and a whole lot of marriages were lined up to be solemnised.
