Kerala High Court halts demolition of apartment towers built for Army personnel

The Kerala High Court on Monday stayed the proposed demolition of Chander Kunj Towers B and C, built for Army personnel [PK Unique Projects Pvt Ltd v. DC Committee & others].Chander Kunj Army Towers is a gated community in Silversand Island, Vytilla developed by the Army Welfare Housing Organization (AWHO), under the Army Head Quarters.While staying the demolition, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice Syam Kumar VM permitted the authorities to proceed with execution of the agreement for the demolition."However, the commencement of the said agreement shall be only after the prayer for interim order is considered and decided by the learned Single Judge," the Court ordered..The Court passed the order on an appeal filed by PK Unique Projects, one of the bidders for the controlled demolition of Towers B & C of the apartment complex.The High Court had in February 2025 directed the demolition and reconstruction of the two towers, after expert reports found serious structural deficiencies in the buildings.Subsequently, a committee headed by the Ernakulam District Collector was constituted to oversee the evacuation, demolition and reconstruction process. The authorities then initiated a tender process to select an agency for the controlled demolition of the towers. The work was ultimately awarded to Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering..PK Unique Projects challenged the decision to award the demolition contract to Edifice, arguing that it had emerged as the lowest financial bidder after quoting ₹9.22 crore for the work.The company alleged that the authorities after calling for tenders introduced a fresh evaluation method that assigned 70% weightage to technical qualification and 30% to financial bids. According to the company, the technical evaluation marks were never disclosed and the process lack transparency..In its appeal before the Division Bench, PK Unique Projects argued that the demolition process should not be allowed to proceed until its challenge to the award of the contract is considered by the Single Judge.It expressed apprehension that the authorities would execute the agreement and proceed with demolition even before hearing of its plea for interim relief.The State submitted that the single judge has called for a counter affidavit by June 23. Taking note of the submissions, the Court observed that the single judge refused to grant interim relief since no counter had been filed by the respondents in that plea."Now that the respondents propose to file their counter affidavit by tomorrow, it shall be open to the parties to approach the learned Single Judge with a prayer for advancing the hearing of the application for interim relief, particularly having regard to the fact that the complete demolition of the towers is stated to be a necessity and such matters may not brook any delay," the Court added while disposing of the appeal.It further granted liberty to the appellant to seek an advancement of the hearing before the single judge..Senior counsel P Deepak and Advocates KR Arun Krishnan and Deepa K Radhakrishnan appeared for the appellant.Additional Advocate General Mohammed Shah appeared for the State authorities..[Read order]