HC Dismisses PILs Against Residential Towers on Pallikaranai Land
The state government told the court that it would be known whether the lands in which high-rise towers had been planned would fall within the prohibited zone .
Chennai:The Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed two public interest litigations (PILs) filed by AIADMK legal wing functionary J. Brezhnev and NGO Arappor Iyakkam, against the construction of the high-rise residential towers by Brigade Enterprises on land allegedly falling within the prohibited zone of Pallikaranai marshland, a designated Ramsar wetland site.
The dismissal of the petitions clears the legal hurdle for the project since there is no other petition pending against the particular project while the broader issue of marshland land demarcation is under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan, before whom the two petitions came up for hearing, said they could not entertain the petitions since the Supreme Court is seized of the matter.
The submission of the Tamil Nadu advocate general P.S. Raman and senior counsel P. Wilson, who represented the Tamil Nadu Wetlands Authority, stated that the process of demarcating the Ramsar boundaries for the marshland was yet to be completed. The court pointed out that the Supreme Court had taken up the issue of fixing the boundaries of the Ramsar sites and asked all the state governments to submit the steps taken by them.
The state government told the court that it would be known whether the lands in which high-rise towers had been planned would fall within the prohibited zone or not only after the completion of the demarcation of the Ramsar boundaries, adding it was a patta land as on date. Senior lawyers C. Manishankar and Srinath Sridevan said the patta for the land had been issued in 1935 and the land cannot be construed as a Ramsar site. They also pointed out that the high court need not conduct parallel proceedings when the Supreme Court is seized of the matter. The Supreme Court had already directed the state governments to submit ground truthing reports and other materials for the demarcation of the Ramsar site boundaries, the lawyers said. The petitioners sought the quashing of the order clearing the high-rise residential project by Brigades Enterprises, saying that the project fell within the prohibited influence zone of the Pallikaranai marshland.