Lucknow (The Hawk): The Lucknow hotel Levana Suites, where a fire broke out on September 5 and claimed four lives, will be demolished the following month.
Due to allegations of illegal construction, the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) court (non-judicial) has sent a notice to the hotel's owners, requesting that they demolish the structure themselves by December 9; otherwise, the Authority will take necessary action and recover the cost from the owners.
The high court has taken suo motu notice of the hotel fire event from September 5 that cost four lives on September 9.
The third level of the hotel, where up to 30 people were present at the time of the event, saw a severe fire that resulted in up to 19 further injuries.
The LDA, the fire department, and the state government were ordered to provide proper responses regarding the steps taken to prevent fire occurrences in commercial enterprises by a division bench of Justices Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and Saurabh Srivastava.
The investigation team discovered that the hotel's map was incomplete and that it was functioning without transferring the land use to a commercial purpose.
Families of the four people who died—Gurnoor Anand, Sahiba Kaur, Bobby Aman Ghazi, and Sarvika Singh—had called for the hotelier to be held accountable.
LDA vice-chairman Indramani Tripathi stated: "The Development Authority has the right to send the building owner a notice of destruction if a building is erected without the map. The Authority may destroy the property if there is no response to the notice.
One of the proprietors of Levana Suites, Sumer Agarwal, refuted the Authority's assertions, stating, "We have filed all documentation connected to the hotel to the LDA court. The LDA stamp indicates that the map has been approved.
(Inputs from Agencies)