Projects for 2010 games, Metro facing the bulldozer

Two Commonwealth Games projects, a Delhi Metro stretch, structures within the Imperial Hotel in Janpath and alterations at Delhi finance minister A.K. Walia’s house in Daryaganj — they all face the threat of demolition.

Reason: they fall within the prohibited 100-metre limit of protected monuments.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to issue showcause notice of demolition to 92 properties in the Capital, including those mentioned. Altogether 171 properties across the country will get notices within a month.

All the construction was okayed by an expert committee of the ASI, which the court had declared illegal on October 30.

It had held that the ASI, entrusted with the preservation of monuments, had no right to form a committee without legal basis and permit construction within prohibited limits. It had asked the committee to review all the projects it had approved within a month.

On the court's order, counsel for the ASI, Jayant Tripathi, on Wednesday submitted a list of the owners of the 171 properties.

The six-member panel, formed in 2006 and comprising historians and town planners, got 150 requests for relaxation of norms from Delhi alone and approved 116 of them.

It got over 400 applications from across the country.

The matter went to court when Supreme Court lawyer Gaurang Kanth challenged the committee's permission to a private builder to construct within 88 metres of Humayun's tomb in south Delhi.