Karnataka High Court stays Demolition of Janatha Bazaar

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court passed a stay order to the proposed demolition of the 88-year-old ‘Asiatic Building’, which housed Bengaluru’s first Janatha Bazaar on Friday, March 22.

Responding to a PIL by The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), which had moved the court seeking directions to protect the building a division bench headed by Acting Chief Justice L Narayana Swamy passed the interim order.

A notice with this regard had been sent to the state government, Karnataka PWD, the BBMP and the BDA.

It may be recalled that on December 27, 2016 Public Works Department (PWD) had issued a sanction order , for the demolition of the building. 

Janatha Bazaar was designed by German botanist and garden designer Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel, the architect of Lalbagh.  Some of the portions of the building were rented out to other government organisations, such as the Employment Exchange, BSNL and the Mysore Silk Corporation.