NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave a green signal to the Central Government to carry forward the land acquisition process for the Rs 10,000-crore eight-lane Chennai-Salem Green Field Corridor project. The top court also dismissed the appeal of land owners against the acquisition.
The apex court’s verdict came on a batch of appeals filed by the Centre and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), and a few land owners and others, including PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss.
“The Centre is not required to obtain ‘prior environmental or forest clearance’ under the laws before declaring a stretch as national highway and expressing its intention to acquire the land for building, maintenance or operating such roads,” the apex court held.
Justices AM Khanwilkar, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari, partly allowed the appeals by the Centre and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) against a 2019 Madras High Court judgment which set aside the land acquisition process.
The court rejected the challenge made to the notifications under Section 2(2) (declaration of land as NH) and 3A (issuance of notification intimating intent to acquire land) of the NH Act, 1956.
The project
The eight-lane corridor is part of the Centre’s Bharatmala Pariyojana project, and aims to cut the travel time between Chennai and Salem by half, to about two hours and 15 minutes