CHENNAI: The Kerala High Court on Wednesday observed that the K-Rail SilverLine project is perhaps the biggest project the state government has taken upon itself so far. Such a big project should not be implemented "intimidating and threatening people," even as it asked the Centre to make its stand clear regarding the project.
The court stayed in the process of laying boundary stones on the land identified for the project ahead of a social impact assessment.
Justice Devan Ramachandran noted that although it is argued by the respondents that the project has been approved in principle, there was no clarity regarding the same from the Centre, Live Law reported.
"Nobody knows what the position of the Central government is with regards to the project. I'm not saying surveys should not be conducted. But the court cannot be kept in the dark like this,"the Justice noted according to the legal news site.
The court also remarked that it was improper for one Counsel to appear for both the Union of India and the Ministry of Railways since there was a clear conflict of interest involved.
The ambitious project of the Pinarayi Vijayan government has come under criticism from various quarters. The project envisages a 529.45 km SilverLine corridor connecting Kasargod and Thiruvananthapuram, with an operating speed of 200kmph to ease the transport between the North and South ends of the state and reduce the total travel time to less than 4 hours, compared with the present 10 to 12 hours.
'Metroman' E Sreedharan, who has dubbed the project as "ill-conceived, badly planned and very badly handled," had noted that he wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi informing that the state government started acquiring land before getting sanction for the project.
Environmental activist Medha Patkar slammed the project recently saying it would destroy the agricultural lands and wetlands of the state.