Hours after deadly fire killed 21 in Delhi B&B, owner filed to renew expired licence

THe devastating blaze out in an illegal bed-and-breakfast in s new delhi’s Hauz ranee that killed 21 people and injured 21 thomas more began in the kitchen of the restaurant on the ground floor, preliminary probes of Delhi Fire Service and police have said. But an HT investigation found on Thursday that Lavkesh Bajaj, the owner of the facility, didn’t have a licence to run a full-fledged restaurant and only possessed a “tea and snacks outlet” licence that didn’t allow any cooking or seating. Even this tea-and-snacks licence expired on March 31 this year, municipal corporation officials said, adding that Bajaj applied for a renewal on Wednesday, hours after the fire was reported. The request was rejected by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).This means that the spot from where the fire likely began — the kitchen in the restaurant — was illegal and unlicenced as of 8.48am on Wednesday, when the blaze was first reported. Worse, this violation was flagged by a junior MCD official last October, but the complaint never moved forward, two MCD officials confirmed to HT.HT has seen the documents of the tea-and-snacks licences issued to Bajaj in 2025, and the fresh application he moved on Wednesday morning.MCD spokesperson Anil Yadav and Ashok Rawat, head of the public health department which regulates such trades, did not respond to HT’s queries pertaining to the alleged violations and lack of action against the unit.Violations by the facility, poor oversight by authorities, and lax regulatory policies came into focus shortly after the inferno claimed the lives of 21 people, 12 of them foreign nationals, at Flourish Stay, a bed-and-breakfast in Hauz Rani. The tragedy — Delhi’s worst fire in five years — came four days after the collapse of an illegal building in adjacent Saidulajab killed six people.The fire killed people visiting India for medical treatment or caregivers of patients who found it convenient to stay in the B&B, one of many in Hauz Rani, which is close to one the city’s biggest private hospitals.Bajaj first applied for the “tea and snacks outlet” licence under his own name in 2024, which was approved by the MCD’s public health department on May 29 that year. The licence — HLSZ-230615227037 — was valid till March 31, 2025. It was renewed in 2025 for a year, until March 31, 2026.A senior municipal official said that the tea-and-snacks licence was meant for small kiosk-like units with no cooking provision or sitting space. “It is like a service space for kiosk-like arrangements where precooked foods and light refreshments such as sandwiches and tea can be served. The unit is not allowed to deploy cooking stove or LPG cylinder,” the official said.But Bajaj instead ran a full-fledged restaurant — Snacks and Bites — that had several tables and chairs, and served a variety of cooked food, HT has found. Its kitchen had stoves and staff who served both the facility guests and outsiders.Police investigation found a restaurant was being run on the ground floor without a piped gas connection, said joint commissioner of police (southern range) Vijay Kumar. “Four gas cylinders were found kept there. The restaurant staff had fled,” said Kumar.The tea-and-snacks licence expired on March 31. On Wednesday, Bajaj and his representatives submitted an online application on an MCD portal with the shop title “Shacks nd bites” seeking a license under the trade “Tea and Snacks Stalls” without the provision of any seats.The application -- numbered 2606031073007 and seen by HT -- said the unit was located at 269 C-2 Hauz Rani Mohalla under the Malviya Nagar ward in South zone.“Typically, these licences are immediately granted and they pertain to very small establishments and inspections are carried out later on random basis. But in this case, the application was immediately rejected after the tragedy stuck,” the official quoted above said. “If the scale of the tragedy was not this big, the owner could have still argued that a deemed approved licence was in pipeline,” he added.Also Read | Why were victims trapped inside after big fire in Delhi? 5 big revelationsBut this was not the first time the illegal restaurant and kitchen were flagged.Two senior MCD officials confirmed that a junior corporation official had flagged licensing violations pertaining to the health trade licence required to run a a full-fledged hotel and restaurant last October, but added that the case never moved forward. “During a random inspection last year, the field official flagged that a hotel and restaurant was being run in place of the tea unit licence,” an official said.The multiple violations in the kitchen and restaurant — reported for the first time — are part of a longer chain of violations and institutional failures.The police have said the B&B had permission to have six rooms — three on the first floor and three on the second — but was operating at least 26 rooms across five storeys, a basement, and the roof. The front façade of the B&B was covered, possibly using panels and toughened glass, and there was only one main entry and exit, with another entry and exit for the basement. The fire department said the entry and exit to the basement were closed. One side of the B&B had windows from which some guests jumped to save themselves.The building did not have a fire exit, did not have the mandatory fire NOC from the Delhi Fire Service (DFS), and the sanctioned building plan was never obtained from the MCD — all requirements mandatory in the case of running a hotel. Instead, Bajaj was allowed to run a de-facto hotel using a B&B licence where monitoring is more lax.HT reported similar violations in at least five other B&B units on the same street.A second MCD official on condition of anonymity told HT that the B&B license can only be used for a unit which is residential in basic character. “A field staffer had flagged a licence violation last year after a site inspection in October and file in this regard had also been prepared. This was clearly a case of a false licence being used to run a hotel with eating house. The basic safety norms for the two are entirely different in scale.”Jagdish Mamgain, former works committee chairman in unified MCD and an urban planning expert, said that the licensing regime and loopholes in the Delhi Master Plan are being exploited to run such illegal establishments.“It is impossible that an illegal hotel of this scale was running in a residential area without being noticed by police and MCD officials. If inspections were carried out last year, why were the licences not cancelled” Officials should be held accountable,” he said.