Supreme Court stops car parking project at Mullaperiyar dam

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday restrained the Kerala government from proceeding with any permanent construction of the mega car project in and around the Mullaperiyar dam. A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan passed this interim order on an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government challenging a National Green Tribunal order holding that no permission was required to be taken by Kerala for the construction activities of the mega car project under the Forest Conservation Act.

The Bench while issuing a notice to the Centre and Kerala on Tamil Nadu’s appeal, made it clear that Kerala could construct temporary structures but no permanent construction activity could be undertaken in the area.  In its appeal, TN said the mega car park area lay in the water spread area and the NGT order permitting construction activities would affect the water body and its surrounding areas and ought not to have been permitted.  It submitted that the Tribunal had erroneously observed that the proposed car parking facility to be established was neither a water body nor a paddy field. It was a water body created for providing water for drinking and irrigation.

TN said the appeal raised several important questions of law, viz Whether the impugned order holding that no permission was required to be taken by Kerala was not contrary to Section 2 of the Forest Conservation Act; Whether in the light of the fact that one of the conditions stipulated in the approval letter dated 21.03.2013 - that at no stage the implementation of the approved plan, the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act and other Acts would be overruled or not followed - had been violated; Whether the proposed construction activities viz., construction of reception blocks, cafeteria, sewage treatment plant,  Eco-Shops complex, Toilet block, Dining Block, Office block, Road work, and Road work for a battery operated vehicle, developing different thematic arboretums, landscaping, etc., which were intended for tourism / commercial activities could be undertaken without the prior approval of the statutory authorities was at all tenable? Tamil Nadu had prayed for the quashing the NGT order and an interim stay of its operation.