Nagpur: The Empress Mall constructed by KSL Industries and Company, which has recently faced action by NMC and various other departments for series of violations, is once again in the news for bad reasons. Recently NMC has declared the place as unsafe for operations. Now two social activists have filed a public interest litigation against the company in Nagpur bench of Mumbai High Court.
In their petition social activists Chandu Lade and Rakesh Naidu have alleged that Empress Mall is producing electricity from crude oil and supplying to the shops.
However, the power distributors Spanco and MSEDCL along with Explosive Deparment has not come cleared its stand on the alleged act by mall authorities, it is learnt that the company had not taken any approvals regarding power generation.
Hearing the petition, Justice Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Justice Zaka Haque has ordered the petitioners to file an affidavit in this regard.
During the last hearing, the petitioners contended that High Court’s order on PIL was not implemented as many loopholes in the mall premises were still not corrected.
In its affidavit filed in High Court, NMC has informed that the civic body has laid the rules regarding examination of fire fighting equipments multi-storeyed buildings.
As per the rules, the investigation report should be filed in prescribed format instead of submitting it in hand-written form. The investigation report would then be duly authorised by a third party who would issue the certificate. The court observed that if the shopping has multiple floors then each floor should be individually inspected.
The counsel for petitioners stated that despite the court orders, NMC only issued notice to Empress Mall authorities. The building has been termed as dangerous on two occasions. As per the rules the building should be evacuated but NMC only issued notice of snapping water and power supply to the building.
