Tamil Nadu - Chennai

High Court orders notice to Centre

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered notice to the Centre, represented by the Railway Board, for filing counter by June 9 on a writ petition seeking to forbear the Centre from engaging any person other than those registered with the Council of Architecture (CoA) to discharge the functions of architect in the country.

In its writ petition, the Tamil Nadu Chapter of the Indian Institute of Architecture, Chennai, represented by its Chairman, R. Ramaraju, said the Railways was appointing architects for re-development of stations, but they were not registered with the CoA.

The agencies appointed for preparing the master plan and feasibility report for the New Delhi and Patna railway stations were neither architects registered with the CoA nor firms whose partners were registered with the council as stipulated in the Architects Act. They were foreign companies and they appointed key personnel, including the one designated as Chief Architect. Here again, such persons who had been appointed had not registered with the council.

The Railway Board has now come up with a proposal for appointing an architect for redeveloping Secunderabad railway station. It had deliberately mentioned the educational qualification, professional experience, previous eligible assignments and also the designation as Chief Architect leaving out the vital factor that the said person should have registered himself with the CoA.

The Architects Act provided for reciprocal agreement with any other country for mutual recognition of each other’s architectural qualification.

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