By IANS
Kochi (Kerala) : Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Wednesday suffered a set-back as the state high court ordered re-opening of a resort building in Munnar that was partly demolished last year as part of a drive to evict encroachers.
Achuthanandan earned accolades for taking a bold step in demolishing illegal constructions at the picturesque Munnar hills in Idukki district but the drive was given up after some time.
In an interim ruling, Justice A.K. Basheer ordered that the resort building could continue its operations and the receiver, who was earlier asked to take it over, should inform the court about the operations.
Earlier, the court asked the government to repair the demolished portion of the resort.
After the government recovered around 10,000 acres of encroached property in Munnar, trouble erupted from within the ruling Left Democratic Front when the three-member task force appointed by Achuthanandan demolished a portion of the Communist Party of India (CPI) office.
The government ordered that party offices and religious establishments would not be touched, even if they were on encroached property, and the eviction and demolition drive was given up.
Munnar is situated at an altitude of 1,600 metres and in the demolition drive close to a dozen resort buildings were razed.