Chennai building owners dismantle and sell mobile tower as scrap after company fails to pay rent

CHENNAI: The owners of a building in Chennai’s Koyambedu dismantled and sold a mobile tower that was installed on their terrace in 2006 for the now defunct Aircel company.
GTL Infrastructure Limited, which installed the 15-foot-high mobile tower on the terrace of the building in North Mada Street in Koyambedu, had paid rent to its owners Chandran, Karunakaran and Balakrishnan from 2006 to 2018.The building owners didn’t get rent after that. Aircel has been under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process since March 12, 2018.
Recently, a few employees of GTL Infrastructure Limited visited the building and found that the tower was missing. They inquired with the building owners about the missing tower. The trio informed them that the tower had been dismantled and sold to a scrap dealer in Koyambedu.
GTL Infrastructure official V Krishnamurthy filed a complaint with the Koyambedu police seeking legal action against the house owners for illegally dismantling the tower and selling it. In the complaint, he claimed that the tower was worth Rs 8.62 lakh. The police have registered a case.