New Delhi: The Supreme Court today upheld the notifications issued for acquiring land for the Chennai-Salem eight-lane greenfield expressway project.
Partly allowing the appeals of the Union of India and the National Highways Authority of India, the top court reversed the Madras High Court judgment to the extent it quashed the land acquisition notifications.
The Court said that it has negatived the challenge against the notifications issued under the National Highways Act.
A bench comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari delivered the judgment in the appeals filed by Central government and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) against the Madras High Court judgment which quashed the notifications for acquisition of land for the highway project.
It may be noted that on 8 April 2019, the Madras High Court quashed the acquisition proceedings for the 277 kilometer proposed highway passing through agricultural as well as reserve forest land.
The main issue in the case was whether prior environmental clearance was necessary before acquiring lands for the highway project.
A division bench of Justices T S Sivagnanam and V Bhavani Subbaroyan of the High Court held that that prior environmental clearance under the Environment Protection Act 1986 was necessary before acquiring land invoking the powers under the National Highways Act.
The bench rejected the argument advanced by the Centre, Tamilnadu government and National Highway Authority of India that environmental clearance was not needed at the time of ‘securing’ the land for highway construction and that it was needed only at the time of actual laying of the road.
The Court termed this argument as ‘putting the cart before the horse’. The Court said that the issue has to be approached applying the ‘public trust doctrine’, as per which the State holds public land and resources at trust for benefit of people.
The Court put particular emphasis on the fact that the acquisition will impact large tracts of fertile farm lands.