The five-star facility next to the United Nations headquarters is owned by Praful Kumar, who had sought court protection on Wednesday.
Mr Kumar said he had paid the inspection fee of Sh2.9 million and obtained all the necessary approvals from the county government.
Justice Benard Eboso, however, dismissed the petition by Whitehorse Investments Limited, saying the application was premature.
The county government had served the businessman with a notice to stop construction of the hotel on December 14, 2017, months before it started demolitions of buildings in the city.
“It does not matter how well connected you are; if you have built on a road reserve or waterways, that structure has to go down,” Governor Mike Sonko warned in August.
'Impunity'
Mr Kumar, through a petition by Whitehorse Investments Limited, told the court that City Hall has not served him with the notices and that the building was already 75 per cent complete.
The county government, through its lawyer Harrison Kinyanjui, said the businessman had ignored the Physical Planning Act, which controls developments within the city and was trying to use the court to propagate the “impunity”.
The lawyer added that the proprietor had also contravened the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by putting up a five-level structure that poses security risk to diplomatic facilities, including the UN headquarters.
Bribery claims
The demolition comes four months after the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) arrested Mr Kumar on allegations that he tried to bribe Mr Sonko to approve construction of the hotel.
A Mombasa court released the businessman on a Sh500,000 cash bail pending investigations into the alleged incident that happened in Kilifi.
The hotel is the latest in a series of posh buildings brought down by the county government since July for encroaching on riparian or sitting on grabbed land.
Others include Ukay Mall in Westlands, South End Mall along Lang’ata Road, Airgate Mall, formerly Taj Mall, and a host of other residential buildings in the capital.
The demolitions are spearheaded by a multi-agency team comprising officials from the National Environment Management Authority, the National Youth Service and the Nairobi County government.
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