Chennai: Madras high court has ordered notice to the state government on a public interest litigation, which sought to relocate the memorials of former Chief Ministers C.N. Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran and J. Jayalalithaa at Marina beach to Gandhi Mandapam in Kotturpuram, to protect coastal zones of Tamil Nadu.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar before whom the PIL filed by social activist Traffic Ramaswamy, posted after two weeks, further hearing of the case.
According to petitioner, a decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting recently to construct a full-fledged memorial for former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and a budget of Rs 15 crore has been allocated for the same. That there were three major political persons’ ‘Samadhi’ present on the Marina beach, with millions of people converging every day to visit and pay homage creates a sort of environment hazard apart from gross environmental pollution, he added. He said there was also an order of Madras high court restricting constructions along Chennai coast in 2016. It would be appropriate to remove the existing three samadhis and relocate them, he said.
