The Telangana High Court on Friday stayed the demolition of Secretariat building, undertaken by the state government, till July 13, petitioner's counsel advocate Chikkudu Prabhakar said.
Prabhakar said that the High Court has asked the State government to submit what permissions they have taken under Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules 2016 till Monday.
"PL Vishveshwar Rao and Dr C Sudhakar had filed a petition in the High Court against the demolition of the Secretariat. Today the argument continued for two and a half hours through video conference," Prabhakar said.
He said that the Secretariat falls under the green zone/buffer zone.
"It (secretariat) is beside a water body, Hussain Sagar. Yet they started demolition causing pollution in the surroundings. In this critical coronavirus situation, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has issued guidelines to maintain cleanliness, but the State government is violating it and on the name of 'Vasthu' they started demolition which is completely wrong," Prabhakar said.
"The government said that they will get permission by tomorrow. However, the bench denied their request. The next hearing is posted on July 13. Even on Monday, we will argue and we will try to stop the demolition of Secretariat completely," he added.
Prabhakar also questioned the necessity to demolish the building at midnight and why the pollution control board and the environment department were not interfering.
After the High Court gave its clearance to the construction of a new secretariat, the Telangana government authorities had started demolishing the secretariat from July 6 night.
( With inputs from ANI )