The directions were given on a petition filed by Overseas Chinese Cuisine (India) Pvt Ltd, challenging the BMC's letter of July 3 wherein the civic body refused to accept the heritage TDR of 136.50 sq metres bought by the restaurant to get its illegal portions regularised. The BMC has already sent a notice for demolition of the high-profile Chinese restaurant and was to undertake the demolition today.

Special counsel for the BMC K K Singhvi argued that the petition was not maintanable since the restaurant accepted that theirs was an illegal structure and had exhausted all forums to get it regularised. He argued that the hotel which was given permission to run within 73 sq metres of area, had illegally expanded to 635 sqmtres.

He argued that the suit of the restaurant in the Bombay High Court had been dismissed in November 12, 1997 and hence the demolition order of 1985 still stood. He also argued that as per the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms, since China Garden fell in the CRZ area, the structure could not be regularised through heritage TDRs.

V R Manohar, counsel for Nelson Wang, owner of China Garden on his part argued that his structure was beyond the 200 metres of CRZ norms notified in 1991 and did not fall within the CRZ scheme. He also argued that the BMC should be asked to file an affidavit on the issue and not furnish arguments that did not form a part of their letters, across the bar.