SC asks lawyer to mention on January 10 plea for relief and compensation to affected

New Delhi: The Supreme Court of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha asked an advocate to mention on Tuesday, a plea seeking its intervention for immediate relief and compensation to the people affected by sinking and sliding landmass Joshimath in Uttarakhand.

The plea by Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati sought a direction to declare the situation in Joshimath as a national disaster and direct the NDMA to support the residents.

Cracks have appeared in hundreds of houses in Joshimath — the gateway to the pilgrimage sites like Badrinath and Hemkund Sahib — said the PIL, blaming the disturbance in environmental, ecological and geological due to industrialisation, urbanisation and destruction of natural resources by the Union and State government in the fragile area.

“In the name of and/or for the cause of development the respondents have no right to push the people in the mouth of death and the religious sacred town in extinction and thereby infringe the fundamental right of the people of the Joshimath including the petitioner as well as inmates of his monastery guaranteed under Articles 21, 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India,” says the plea.

Seeking a halt to ongoing Tapovan Vishnugad Hydroelectric Project, the petitioner sought a direction that work should not begin till a high-level committee of geologists, hydrologists and engineers constituted by the apex clears it.