Supreme Court Allowed New Plea challenging Environmental Clearance for Central Vista Project
New Delhi:
The Supreme Court today authorized the filing of a new plea challenging the June 17 environmental clearance granted to the ambitious Central Vista project, covering a 3 km stretch from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate in Lutyens in Delhi, for the construction of a new Parliament and other government buildings.
A bench of judges AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheswari and Sanjiv Khanna allowed lead lawyer Shyam Divan to file a new plea within a week challenging the environmental clearance of the “Vista Central Committee” for the project.
The central government will respond to the petition one week after it is filed.
The higher court, which issued the motion to be filed for hearing in the week starting August 17, however, said it was not sure the physical hearing would begin by then. He has been holding a videoconference hearing since the COVID-19 lockdown in March.
“We give Divan one week to file the petition and one week at the Center to respond within a week of receiving the plea … The question will be published after two weeks,” the bench ordered.
The bench was hearing up to seven pleadings, including two transfer motions from the Delhi High Court, on the issue and they were filed by people like activist Rajeev Suri and retired Lt. Col. Anuj Srivastava against various authorizations granted to the project by the authorities including the nod to change land use.
At first, Shyam Divan, appearing for one of the petitioners, said the case was mainly against the land use change permission, then “there was an environmental clearance granted on June 17 to the project.” .
He said there were multiple causes of action and the granting of the environmental clearance could be challenged in the National Green Court (NGT) and the higher court could not use its power to reduce this challenge. of the environmental authorization before the NGT.
The bench said there were two other petitions that raised environmental issues and that the new environmental clearance plea will be governed by Supreme Court orders only.
Lawyer Shikhil Suri said one of the pending petitions challenged the granting of environmental clearance to the parliament project only, but now the issue of granting environmental clearance to the entire Central project. Vista is lifted.
“There is no ‘us against them’ here. Our parliament is being built. In the future, buildings for the Ministry of Defense and Finance will also be built,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said. , appearing for the Center, adding that “individuals” are before the court as well as “individuals in the public mind”.
“The project must go through all the levels of control that a citizen can invoke. The authorization granted concerned the construction of a new building and the renovation of the existing parliament building,” said Shyam Divan.
Opposing the granting of the environmental clearance, Shyam Divan said that a piecemeal approach was taken and the entire central view project should be registered as a township project, and then l The environmental authorization should have been granted. Recently, the CPWD supported the project and requested the rejection of the contests.
Previously, the Supreme Court had declared that any changes on the ground made by the authorities for the Central Vista project would be done “at their own risk”.
He had made it clear that the fate of the project, which includes several new government buildings and a new parliament, will depend on his decision.
The pleas challenged the granting of a certificate of no objection by the Vista Central Committee (CVC) as well as the environmental authorizations for the construction of a new Parliament building.
One of the pleas was brought against an order of the Delhi High Court which said that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was not required to notify it before notifying changes to the master plan to authorize the project. Central Vista.
The Delhi High Court’s division bench suspended on February 28 an order of its single judge bench which asked the DDA to approach the court before notifying any changes in the master plan for the implementation of the ambitious project. from the Central Vista Redevelopment Center. .
The high court’s suspension order on the February 11 single judge bench directive came on the intra-judicial appeal of the DDA and the Center.
The petitioners in the High Court had opposed the Central Vista project on the grounds that it involved a land use change in the green zone adjacent to Rajpath and Vijay Chowk for the construction of new offices for parliament and government.
Gujarat-based architecture firm HCP Designs won the consultancy bid for the ambitious Central Vista Redevelopment Center project.
The redesign, which was announced in September last year, envisions a new triangular Parliament building, with a capacity of 900 to 1,200 MPs, which is expected to be built by August 2022, when the country celebrates its 75th day of independence. The Joint Central Secretariat is expected to be built by 2024.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
