India, Sept. 7 -- The building that collapsed in south Delhi's Satya Niketan on Sunday, killing several people, had no sanctioned building plan and unauthorised construction in its basement, according to a senior Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) official aware of the early assessment following the latest tragedy. The rampant violations have again raised questions about how such structures went undetected in a neighbourhood where multi-storey PG buildings have proliferated for years.

But much of the construction that transformed the low-rise settlement into a dense student hub happened outside the rules, with senior MCD officials saying no sanctioned building plan exists for the collapsed structure and that construction in its basemen...