Char Dham Highway Expansion-There Is No Defence Needs Versus Civilian or Environmental Concerns, Have To Balance Both: Supreme Court

"There is no defence versus environment at all. What you do for the defence is not contrary to the civilian needs or environmental needs", observed Justice D. Y. Chandrachud on Wednesday.The bench, also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, was hearing the plea challenging the Char-Dham Highway expansion project.Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, for the petitioner-NGO Citizens for Green Doon, expressed that he is "very perturbed by this narrative of Army versus the people, of Defence versus environment".On hearing Justice Chandrachud, Mr. Gonsalves said, "I just thought that a standard has been set which will affect the lives of the people in the mountains irreversibly. It will cause landslides, it will dry up the water streams. The standard would have been not pro-people".On Tuesday, AG K. K. Venugopal had told the Supreme Court that in view of China's new land border law passed in October, and its huge build-up of infrastructure on the other side of the border, the Char-Dham Highway expansion project now assumed strategic importance for national security, to avoid consequences akin to the 1962 Indo-China war. In his turn, Mr. Gonsalves said that the proposed widening of the roads is only to advance the Centre's "ambitious" Char-Dham Pariyojana. Mr. Gonsalves told the bench that the justification offered by the Centre that the expansion of these roads, which are being described as feeder roads leading to the border roads at the Indo-China border, is of strategic importance for national security, is only a ruse and that the Armed Forces has stated that it does not need the same. He had emphasised that any further widening of the roads would aggravate the weakness and the destabilisation of the Himalayan range and produce drastic consequences in terms of landslides and other natural calamities.The bench had asked Mr. Gonsalves if the Supreme Court, as the highest constitutional court in the country, can override concerns of the defence, "particularly in view of contemporary events which have taken place in the recent past" (the 17-odd month long stand-off on the Indo-China border), saying that the Char-Dham Highway expansion project does not comport with environmental protection. "Or should the Court follow the more nuanced approach of stating that defence of the nation is a very important priority for any elected government of the day, but at the same time, require the government to act in a manner consistent with the environment?", the bench had put to Mr. Gonsalves.Justice Chandrachud on Wednesday clarified that what the Court expresses during the course of the hearings are only tentative views in order to elicit responses from the parties. "The matter is always open till the last word", said the judge.He repeated that the bench has noted that the majority report of the court-appointed HPC, which is in favour of the double-lane paved shoulder roads of 10 m width in terms of the 2020 MORTH circular, has also noticed serious environmental violations."Now we are confronted with a situation where a large part of the work is already done (on the feeder roads; black-topping, hill-cutting etc). Leaving the work in a haphazard manner is not going to work. Should we be of the view that some work should proceed having regard to the repercussions on the defence of the country, what are the stringent measures for the safeguard of the environment, balancing the need for defence and the need for access to the border areas?", asked Justice Chandrachud from Mr. Gonsalves.The judge also asked the AG to reflect on this aspect of mitigation measures for sustainable development- "We want to know if this work is being done entirely by the state PWD, or which portions are being done by the Border Roads Organisation? We also want to know which are the agencies that will ensure that the environmental safeguards, including those which are being introduced in the report, are fully complied with and the situation which has occurred will not occur in the future. To the extent it is humanly possible, we will preclude the possibility of an environmental accident or landslides in this area. What are the modalities by which you will ensure the concerns highlighted even in the majority report?", the judge put to the AG."Secondly, the report seems to suggest that within this area, there are certain points and pockets which are landslide prone zones. The majority report also says that there may be certain regions within the track which are extraordinarily landslide prone, so before you go ahead with the work, you must identify those sectors. How would you ensure that such an exercise is done so that in this hurry to widen, hurry to provide a completely developed road, these wider concerns are not ignored by the implementing agencies?", Justice Chandrachud further asked."We have already dealt with it in my compilation of relevant documents on behalf of the Union of India. The agencies which are going to oversee have already been...

Char Dham Highway Expansion-There Is No Defence Needs Versus Civilian or Environmental Concerns, Have To Balance Both: Supreme Court

Mehal Jain

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