Supreme Court Approves Central Vista Project

The redevelopment plan for Central Vista which includes the construction of a new Parliament building and a common Central Secretariat has been approved by the Supreme Court (SC) with 2:1 majority on Tuesday.

It however insisted that the clearance of the Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC) will be mandatory and the same should be obtained by the project consultant before proceeding with the development work. It also directed the installation of smog guns at the project site as a measure to curb pollution and asked the Ministry of Environment and Forests to consider having smog guns while carrying out any such development work in future.

The three-judge bench comprised of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna. While the majority verdict was given by Khanwilkar and Maheshwari, Khanna on the other hand dissented with regard to change of land use and prior approval of HCC. He even found the environment clearance inadequate.

Justice Khanna's view however would be nullified as the majority bench gave a blanket approval to the Centre's decision on change of land use and grant of environmental clearance. The majority view noted that HCC clearance would only be needed when the actual work commences and not at the initial stage.

Earlier last year in November, the court reserved orders on a batch of ten petitions filed by Rajeev Suri, Anuj Srivastava and others which challenged the manner in which the Central Vista project got various clearances. The petitions claimed that the project has been planned by destroying heritage buildings and giving unified building by-laws a go by.

The redevelopment plan includes a new Parliament building, and a common secretariat for Central government offices along with the Prime Minister office and residence, Special Protection Group building and Vice-President Enclave.

Apart from a new Parliament building, the Central Vista project involves constructing a common Central Secretariat along with residences of Prime Minister and vice-president, and a revamp of the 3-km-long Rajpath, from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate.