MUMBAI: The Mumbai High Court on Wednesday suspended an order passed by the Mumbai Suburban District Collector allocating 102 acres of salt flats in Mumbai. Kanjurmarg area for the construction of an integrated Shed for subway cars.
A bank in the division of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Judge GS Kulkarni also prevented the authorities from carrying out any construction work on the site.
The Center and the Shiv Sena-led MVA government in Maharashtra are locked in a fight over ownership of the land assigned by the state to build the previously planned car depot in Aarey Colony, a greenbelt in the suburbs of Goregaon. .
The Union government has filed a petition in the superior court challenging the order of October 1, 2020 approved by the collector that allocates the land for the construction of the car shed, and said that the land belongs to its salt department ( from the center).
“We cannot allow the collector’s order of October 1, 2020 to continue. The order has to go. We are admitting the petition and granting the reparation requested by the petitioner (government of the Union) in the clauses of sentence ‘h’ and ‘I’, “the court said.
Under the ‘h’ sentence clause, the Union government had asked the court to suspend the operation of the October 1 pickers order, transferring possession of 102 acres of land to the Metropolitan Region Development Authority of Mumbai (MMRDA) for the construction of an integrated car shed. for Metro lines.
In sentence “I” clause, the Center had requested a court order prohibiting MMRDA from carrying out any construction work on said land.
On Monday, the HC suggested that the state government consider withdrawing the order approved by the collector.
On Wednesday, General Counsel Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, who appeared for the state government, told the HC that the state was ready to withdraw the order and rehearing the Union government, but that construction work would continue in the ground.
Kumbhakoni told the court that soil tests were currently underway at the site.
The higher court, however, noted that when it was deemed prima facie that the collector’s order transferring possession cannot continue, then how can he allow construction work to continue on such land?
On Wednesday, the court granted the suspension and granted the request for a final hearing in February.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi government (MVA), made up of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, had opposed the statement and said that the land allocated to the MMRDA for the Metro car shed is owned by the state government.
The Union government in its plea claimed that all the salt land in the area, including the 102 acres assigned to the MMRDA, belongs to the Center’s salt department.
The previous BJP-led Maharashtra government had decided to build the car shed for the Mumbai subway Line 3 at Aarey Colony in the western suburbs, despite opposition from environmentalists and activists to the extensive logging for the project.
The current MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray recently made the decision to move the car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg.
It decided to build a built-in car shed in Kanjurmarg for metro lines 3, 4, 4A and 6, rather than build separate car sheds for these lines.
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