Chennai: The Madras high court has quashed the notification issued by the authorities for acquisition of lands for the Rs 10,000 crore Salem-Chennai Eight Lane Highway Green Field Project.
A division bench comprising Justices T.S.Sivagnanam and V.Bhavani Subbaroyan allowed a batch of petitions from land owners and some Public Interest Litigations, challenging the land acquisition proceedings under section 3 A (1) of the National Highways Act by the authorities for the mega project.
“We are of the considered view that the project highway as conceived and sought to be implemented is vitiated on several grounds and consequently, the notification issued for acquisition of lands under section 3A (1) are liable to be quashed. In the result, the petitions are allowed and the land acquisition proceedings are quashed”, the bench added.
The bench said all the entries in the revenue records, which stood mutated, shall be reversed in the names of land owners and fresh orders be issued and communicated to the respective land owners.
“The procedure adopted by National Highways Authority of India in asking the consultant to carry out a work which was never the scope of the bid document by an oral arrangement is unheard of,” the bench said.
“Therefore, unless a proper study is made, the impact on the forest lands, water bodies, wildlife, flora and fauna cannot be assessed and therefore, if the Central government is still of the opinion that the subject project is required to be implemented and it passes through the required procedural formalities, then it is well open to the authorities to make a comprehensive study of the environmental impact”, the bench added.
Holding that the petitions are maintainable, the bench rejected the preliminary objections raised by the Additional Solicitor General of India.
Allowing the petitions, the bench pointed out that peaceful protests were stifled, unwritten gag orders were promulgated, police force was used to handle the peaceful protestors, who were making a request to spare them and their lands. Only after this Court intervened, these high handed actions had subsided. “Thus, considering the peculiar facts of the instant case, magnitude of the project, the proposed alignment, which admittedly cuts across the Forest land, water bodies, big and small fertile agricultural lands, it is necessary that prior environmental clearance is required before the respondents (authorities) proceed further, pursuant to the notification under section 3A (1) of the Act”, the bench added.
The bench said the respondents, being a welfare State, while implementing the project, which, in the opinion of the government, was in public interest, cannot close its eyes to reality and forget that protecting agriculture was equally in public interest. “The balance between agricultural development and economic development is delicate and may at times be very difficult for the bureaucrats and policy decision makers to perceive. Thus, the interpretation, in so far as India is concerned, should lean towards agriculture. Therefore, we are of the clear view that if the project is allowed to be implemented without prior environmental clearance, it would be grossly in violation of the principles of sustainable development and would violate the provisions of Articles 19, 21, 46, 48A and 51A of the Constitution of India”, the bench added.
The bench said there was an allegation that there was a hidden agenda for the proposed project. One of the petitioners has named a public limited company manufacturing steel stated to have garnered about 2000 acres of land in Salem district with a view to exploit the natural resources. “However, there is no material placed before us to show that the project has had a hidden agenda. “Nevertheless, we may observe that there has been great haste in notifying the project and one fails to understand as to why there is such hurry in doing so, when the state is still grappling about the after-effects of two cyclonic storms in last four years. We deem it appropriate to say nothing more on this”, the bench added.
The bench also held that the award of the consultancy contract was wholly ill egal. “we have no hesitation to hold that the projectoriginally notified in lot no.6 was different from the project now sought to be implemented and the Consultant having been declared as 'successful bidder' for the Chennai-Madurai project, could not have been permitted to proceed with the Chennai-Salem project except for inviting fresh tenders and offers”, the bench added.
