Srinagar, August 24 (KNS): A building owner of a residential-cum-commercial building has accused Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) of harassing him despite being issued a building permission for the construction of the building. 

Mohammad Ishaq Pampori, owner of the building told Kashmir News Service (KNS) that in 2018 he approached SMC to seek permission for three storey commercial-cum-residential building in Umer Colony of Srinagar.

“Once the construction was started, the neighbouring residents moved an objection and approached the SMC to stop the construction,” he said, adding that following which he approached the high court wherein double bench passed direction and referred his case to tribunal and permission was granted.

“Since the permission was earlier approved for three stories, permission for the fourth floor was applied in 2019 where in the then Commissioner SMC approved the said application on 01 November 2019 and forwarded file to JCB for fee assessment,” he said.

He alleged that under a conspiracy, this file was kept hidden for two years even as fee assessment was done, but the same was never taken from him.

He further said that under municipal corporation act building norms 2011 5.0 section-E and sub section 5.1 that if an applicant applies for a permission for building construction after completing all documentation and if SMC fails to refuse him building construction within period of sixty days, then he gets a deemed sanction under which he can start construction work.

“Under the same deemed sanction, work was resumed on the same building some days ago and SMC stopped work and harassed me,” he said.

Meanwhile, he appealed to the Lieutenant Governer, Manoj Sinha to safeguard his rights as he suffered financial losses and building too has started showing cracks as work was not going on for the last couple of years. (KNS)