BENGALURU: The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) on Thursday informed the High Court that it will abide by the injunction order passed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) restraining it from taking up construction of the steel flyover project.
Taking note of the submission made by the counsel for BDA, the division bench of Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice R B Budihal adjourned the hearing of public interest litigation challenging the project.
The PIL was filed by a city-based foundation. The foundation had also filed an interlocutory application (IA) seeking immediate hearing.
However, the bench made it clear that it will take up the hearing of the IA along with the main petition as they do not find any urgency in view of the injunction order passed by the NGT for four weeks.
BDA preparing reply
BDA engineer-member P N Nayak, who was present during the hearing, told Express, “We cannot go ahead with any construction work now since the National Green Tribunal has ordered a four-week stay. The BDA is busy readying its reply to the NGT to be presented in the court with the right picture. Our reply will be submitted in the court within three days,” he said.
The CEO of the city-based Foundation, Sridhar Pabbishetty, who had filed PIL against the flyover last month, claimed at an event on Thursday that BDA had given an undertaking in the court that it would not proceed with the flyover project. BDA Engineer-Member P N Nayak, however, strongly refuted giving any such undertaking.
Pabishetty said there were three main contentions against the BDA: bypassing scrutiny by the Metropolitan Planning Committee; not enough information put out in public domain as well as lack of proper responses to RTI applications and absence of effective public consultation.
However, when asked if the BDA had told the court that it was backing out of the flyover project, BDA Commissioner Rajkumar Khatri said, “Nothing of that sort.” He said he concurred with the views expressed by the Engineer-Member.