Yesterday, the Bombay High Court rejected a plea challenging the construction of Metro Line 4. The Court held that it could not find any error in the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) finalising the alignment of the corridor, executing the work and acquiring land for the project.
Metro 4 (Wadala to Kasarvadavali) is a 32.32-km elevated corridor, connecting Mumbai and Thane with 30 stations.
The division bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V Marne was hearing the pleas filed by Indo Nippon Chemical Company Limited and Shree Yashwant Co-operative Housing Society Limited from Ghatkopar (East).
The petitioners have alleged that the alignment of the Metro corridor affected their properties. They also challenged the execution of the project for being “violative of statutory provisions”.
In the plea, petitioner Indo Nippon told the Bombay High Court that the company owns 7332.5 sq m of land in Ghatkopar, of which 2,025 sq m – 27 per cent of the plot – have been affected by the alignment of the project. The company claimed that alignment would affect its commercial operations on the plot where it operates a commercial building, two godowns and a ready-mix cement plant. The livelihood of more than 200 employees depends on its operations, it added. Indo Nippon challenged March 23, 2017, notification of the Union government that added Metro 4 alignment in the Schedule-II of Metro Act, 1978, as well as the government resolution (GR) of October 25, 2016, by which the state had granted approval to the execution of the project.
Yashwant Society, through advocate Vaibhav M Parshurami, told HC that piers would be constructed for the project on the footpath adjacent to its property. It claimed that the alignment at Goradia Nagar junction was deliberately changed by MMRDA and sought restoration of the original alignment.
Advocate General Birendra Saraf and lawyer Akshay Shinde, representing MMRDA and the state government, questioned the locus standi of the petitioners. The government said that all statutory provisions were complied with while finalising the alignment of the project. The court, dismissing the pleas, clarified that the companies are entitled for lawful compensation. It held, “Writ petitions filed by petitioners are devoid of merits and deserve to be dismissed.”
Observing that “the work is of public nature”, the court refused to grant a stay on the operation of its judgment.
Website designed, developed and maintained by webexy