The BMC has issued a stop-work notice to the co-owner of Shalimar building, Amrish Arora, over some major renovations on the ground floor of the structure and lodged a complaint with the Cuffe Parade police charging him of flouting the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act (MRTP) by lowering the plinth of his 2,000 sq ft flat and breaking four external walls.

The civic corporation took note of the alleged illegal renovation after Dr P Navin Kumar, president of Colaba-Cuffe Parade Citizens' Group, complained to Municipal Commissioner Girish Gokhale in late October this year. Soon the `A' ward officer Rajendra Vale issued a stop-work notice to Arora asking him to raise the plinth back to its original level.

Arora, however, has deniedthe charges claiming that all renovations carried out were legally permissible.

``My architect, R W Gudal has already issued a statement to the BMC clearly stating that no civic rules were broken while carrying out the `renovations,'' he told Express Newsline.

Dr Kumar has alleged that the changes are blatant attempts at commercialisation of a residential zone of Marine Drive, which comes under the Heritage Conservation Committee of Maharashtra. ``Though the plinth has been raised, the broken walls have not been restored even after two months of the BMC notice,'' he said.

According to Dr Kumar already enough damage has been done to the Queen's Necklace with many ground floor flats suitably converted to carry out commercial activities with impunity. ``But we want to prevent further degradation on Marine Drive,'' he added.

On the charge of commercialisation of the residential zone, Arora clarified that the flat was not a residence but served as his office premise since 1961.

``I have all theold documents and correspondence to prove that it is my office dealing with chemical dyes. In fact, I had not even lowered the plinth, only repaired it and did not even break any load bearing walls since the building is built on RCC technology. There has also not been any FSI violation in this case,'' the co-owner informed.

Claimed ward officer Vale, ``Arora did not approach the Building Proposals department before changing the facade of the building. Under the Development Control rules of 1991 and the BMC Act any renovations dealing with wood-work over 2.2 metres in height is prohibited. Therefore, we recently demolished the wood-work being fixed inside the flat.''

Vale added that though the original plinth was restored and renovations stopped after BMC issued the stop-work notice, further action will be taken if the broken external walls are not restored.