Municipal Corporation Of Delhi — Construction by the builder on an adjacent plot compromising with privacy and safety of the next door neighbour

Address:

110009

Dear Sir,

I am a resident of 164 (2nd Floor) Tagore Park, Delhi 110009. The building in which I reside is constructed only up to second floor and the terrace rights are with us. On the adjacent plot no. 165, a multi-storeyed building is being constructed. The builder has made a shaft (about 14’X4’, WxD) on the side of our residence. For this shaft the fourth side of the wall has not been constructed right from the ground level and up to second floor the wall of our building is serving as the fourth wall of the shaft. From the terrace onwards, the shaft, which has an open window of the staircase, a window of the toilet and a window of the room, directly opens on our terrace. When this violation was pointed out to the builder about three months ago, he assured that this will be closed with a brick wall. However, during April 20-22, 2017, when I was away to Sikkim for an official work, rather than closing the shaft with a brick wall, he installed an iron grill from the beam level, leaving an open passage below. From this open passage, people from their side used to trespass to our terrace without permission or prior intimation, so much so that use of the terrace by the ladies became impossible. After repeated requests and pleadings, the builder agreed that the open passage would be closed by raising our terrace wall and the grill will be closed by welding thick iron sheets on their side of the building. The open passage was closed, by not raising wall on their side, but by brick work on our terrace wall. On June 22, 2017 when I was away to Bengaluru for an official trip, the iron grill was closed with acrylic sheets, a totally temporary measure. My questions and apprehensions are:

1. Is using the wall of other’s building as the fourth wall of the shaft not violation of building byelaws, when it is not a shared air passage by two buildings. In case, this persists, who would be responsible for upkeep and maintenance of our wall from outside (inside for the shaft), especially when we won’t have access to the wall.

2. Is opening of a shaft having three openings, including one of a toilet, not a gross violation of the next door neighbours privacy and safety? Do building bye laws allow such kind of high handedness?

3. Won’t temporary closure of the shaft by acrylic sheets create problem later between us the new occupants of the third floor flat of the new building, whom the builder might sell off as a flat having openings on all four sides, though on other’s plots.

I shall be highly obliged if you could look into this matter and provide us some reprieve from harassing attitude of the builder. Let me also bring to your knowledge that while even constructing the walls touching our side walls, they had not taken adequate precautions. As a result, the newly painted wall of our drawing rooms got spoiled because of the seepage. The bamboo scaffold which can be seen in the pictures was erected without our permission or prior intimation to us, and has been there for the last two months.

I am looking forward to an early resolution of our problems through your effective intervention.

With best regards

Sincerely yours

(Prof. Dr.) S. B. Babbar