SC to hear plea on Mumbai coastal road project

The Supreme Court on Monday said that it will hear the plea challenging the Bombay High Court order which quashed the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) approval for the Rs 14,000 crore coastal road project in Mumbai.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S.A. Bobde and S.A. Nazeer that the matter, which was last heard in July, required an urgent hearing.

Representing the Mumbai civic body, Mehta told the top court that the bench could not hear the matter due to busy schedule with the Ayodhya matter.

The bench responded: "We are still busy...We can transfer this to some other bench."

But Mehta insisted the bench to hear the matter as it was aware of the facts.

"All right, we will see," the bench said.

The Bombay High Court had stopped work on the coastal road project, citing "a serious lacuna in the decision-making process" and "lack of proper scientific study", and insisted on environmental clearance for the project under a Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification. It also raised the issue of corals despite their "miniscule presence" at Haji Ali and Worli.

The High Court had also observed that the project also required approvals under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, though the project has already obtained CRZ clearance from the Union Environment and Forests Ministry.

The project is under construction by Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, which has engaged private players such as Larsen & Toubro.IANS