Towering deceit
With Supertech twin towers gone, the authorities must ensure that the home buyers get their money back
The demolition of twin towers at Noida in UP by Edifice Engineering followed the script, underlining the Mumbai-based firm’s competence and professionalism. There has been any casualty or collateral damage to the adjacent buildings because of the ‘waterfall implosion’ technique used to bring down the towers built by Supertech, according to Edifice and Noida officials. The happenings leading to the demolition are the stuff the web-series of crime genre are made of. In the original plan of the Supertech Emerald Court housing society in the mid-2000s, there were 14 towers and nine floors. Apparently with the complicity of the local officials, the plan underwent a change, with the builder given permission to build 40 floors in each tower. Where the twin towers were built, there was supposed to be a garden according to the original plan. Objecting to the revision, Emerald Court residents moved the Allahabad High Court in 2012. They won the case in 2014, with the high court directing the Noida authority to demolish the towers. But the case reached the Supreme Court where, in August 2021, the high court’s demolition decision was upheld. The apex court was also scathing in its criticism of the officials who had colluded with the builder in getting the building plan revised. The demolition was supposed to be done in three months, but owing to the scale of the task it took a year.
A few hours before the Supertech twin towers fell like a house of cards, a word war began between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya called twin towers “a living example of corruption and anarchy during Akhilesh Yadav’s and SP’s tenure in power.” On its part, the SP accused the BJP of “this building of corruption.” It would be better if politicians, instead of leveling charges at each other, sometimes did something meaningful, especially when the vital interests of people are involved. Take the case of the buyers who had paid for the flats in the two towers. In an earlier submission, the erstwhile management of Supertech had said that except for 59 home buyers all have been paid back or shifted to alternative flats of the realtor. Last week, the Supreme Court assured all home buyers that they would get back the full amount they paid to Supertech. One hopes that that happens, but the story of home buyers getting their money back from developers and colonisers is not a very happy one. There are a large number of people who bought properties built by the companies of the once-booming Jaypee Group but got neither the promised properties nor the full money back. The state government must ensure that the Supertech home buyers do not suffer that fate. At the same time, the SP would do well to keep the pressure up on the authorities for justice to the home buyers. This will be real action.
Source: PTI
