SC wonders why PILs are filed when constructions happen in country

New Delhi: Development and ecological balance must go hand in hand, the Supreme Court said on Friday while wondering why public interest litigations (PILs) are filed when infrastructure projects like highways are launched.

The apex court’s observation came while dealing with a petition over construction work for doubling of the railway tracks on the Vasco Da Gama-Kulem section of Tinaighat-Vasco Da Gama route in Goa.

“We are only wondering why this happens only in this country that when you start constructing a road in Himachal (Pradesh), the PILs come. When you start constructing a highway, national highways, the PILs come,” a bench of Justices Surya Kant and R Mahadevan observed.

“You tell us a single internationally famed tourist resort where the railway facility is not there,” the bench told the petitioner’s counsel, adding, “Go to the Alps mountains and they take you through the snow in train.”

The top court was hearing a petition challenging the August 2022 verdict of the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court which had dismissed a PIL concerning the construction for doubling of the railway track.

The petitioners had alleged in the high court that the construction work was being carried out in violation of the statutory mandate to obtain prior permissions under the 2011 Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification, the Goa Irrigation Act, 1973, the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and the Goa Town And Country Planning Act, among others.

During the hearing on Friday, the apex court observed that the project will strengthen the railway network in Goa and help reduce the burden on road transport.

“This is the only country meant to comply with all the international standards. Rest of the jurisdictions are exempted by the almighty,” the bench observed.

The counsel appearing for the petitioners, while highlighting the hazards of unplanned development, referred to the recent incident in Kerala’s Wayanad district where landslides claimed 195 lives.

On the railway line project in Goa, the bench said there are experts who will examine everything.

The counsel said the railway line runs through an ecologically fragile zone and the plea should not be viewed as something that is anti-development.

“Development and ecological balance must go hand in hand. There is no doubt about it. Nobody can permit ruthless development. After all, we are governed by rule of law,” the bench said.

“We also know it very well. But then we have to see that whether those parameters, those standards have been taken care of,” it said.

The bench told the counsel that there should not be any non-existent or misleading apprehension about something.

When the counsel argued that the Goa coastline was an ecologically sensitive zone, the bench said, “Your ultimate argument is there should not be a railway line… You don’t have any problem when people with luxury vehicles drive there. They have plush bungalows, they have so many cars. You don’t have any problem.”

The apex court then refused to entertain the plea challenging the high court verdict.