High Court's suggestion to Railways on expanding Royapuram station

The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan, was closing a PIL filed by S Sathia Chandran, an advocate.

The advocate sought a direction to forbear the Secretary to Government, Housing and Urban Development Department, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, The Heritage Conservation Committee, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority and General Manager, Southern Railways, from deleting the Royapuram railway station from the list of heritage buildings in Phase-I prepared by them.

"In so far as this issue is concerned, at present the building stands enlisted at Serial No.16 in the list of heritage buildings as per the notification already issued. 

Thus, there is a protection to the building. As to what would happen in future, we cannot guess. But suffice to say that there is a mandate prohibitory against the railways at present. We may suggest that if the railways want to expand the station, such expansion is always possible even while preserving the heritage portion," the bench said.

The petitioner, while referring to a news item in his PIL, claimed Southern Railway officials had approached the Heritage Conservation Committee requesting for removal of the Royapuram station building from the list of heritage buildings so as to enable them to demolish it and undertake some projects.

The petitioner said the building is of historic importance and claimed that it was the oldest station in the sub-continent.