Karol Bagh tragedy: No building plan, banquet hall in basement
Owner tells cops he didn’t building plan approved by civic body, North corp says it acted ‘10-12 times’
NEW DELHI: The owner of Hotel Arpit Palace, RK Goel — who arrested on Sunday — has told police that the building plan for the establishment was not approved by the municipal corporation and that he was using the basement to run a banquet hall.
A major fire had broken out at the Karol Bagh hotel on the morning of February 12 in which 17 people had been killed.
RK Goel was nabbed by the crime branch of Delhi Police on February 17, after he arrived in Delhi from Qatar. The 63-yearold was sent to two day police custody by a Delhi court the same day. On Tuesday, police arrested Goel’s brother, Sharadindu, on whose name the licence to run the hotel had been issued.
Police said RK Goel had bought the property in 1988 as a two-and-a-half storey residential building. Police said Goel then demolished the building and got the hotel constructed. “The hotel is built on a 400 yard plot. The building plan was never approved by the municipal corporation. The hotel has six floors and a basement, from where he was running a banquet hall. Half the hotel’s basement has a sewage treatment plant,” said an officer.
Varsha Joshi, the commissioner of North Delhi Municipal Corporation, confirmed that the owner of Hotel Arpit Palace did not have a sanctioned building plan, because of which the civic agency had initiated action nearly ‘10-12 times’.
“The north civic body had repeatedly booked, in terms of registering an FIR, the hotel in 1993-94. Several demolition activities were also conducted. However, our records show that the demolition had to be stopped as the owner had managed to get a stay order. There were two such court cases. After 2007, because the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act came into force, the agency was prohibited from taking any action. Our inquiry states that there was no fresh construction after 2007,” she said.
Joshi said the internal report of the corporation, however, did not cover the point highlighted by the police that the basement was being used as a banquet hall.
“We know that there was one illegal kitchen operating on the terrace of Hotel Arpit Palace. The north corporation should have issued notices to the owner in this regard,” Joshi said.
Delhi Police spokesperson Madhur Verma said, “For years, the hotel’s trade licence was being renewed by the corporation and the no-objection certificate was being issued by the fire department. Until any agency flags any lapse in the two clearances, there was no reason for us to investigate.”
Delhi Police had issued the licence to Hotel Aprit Palace to run the guest house, which was renewed annually.
An officer from police’s licensing unit said, “In my knowledge, at no point the corporation or the fire services flagged any illegality into the building’s map. After all the clearances by other agencies, police give the guest house licence.”
The officer said that now several other parameters have been added but at that time, the three main parameters for granting a licence were Area Suitability Report (ASR) from the local police, trade licence from municipal corporation and NOC from fire department. “Licence was granted after all these were acquired,” the officer said.
Atul Garg, chief fire officer, Delhi Fire Services said once the No Objection Certificate (NOC) was given, during its renewal, the question of the building’s authorisation is usually not checked.
“It is the corporation’s concern. In 2001, the hotel got its first NOC from fire department. At that time, guests houses were not covered under the Delhi Fire Services Act. The Delhi Police sent us a letter following which we inspected the place and the NOC was given as per the rule prevailing at that time,” he said.
Another officer from the Delhi Fire Services added that they are contacted only for fire safety clearance and the fire safety act does not authorise them to check the map of a building.