The long silence of the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) and its inaction in the DLF case came under fire in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
While dismissing the appeal filed by the authority, the Bench consisting of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, noted that if the authority had “kept an eye open right from the beginning and played the role which it was required to play, the situation which has come to pass would not have occurred and the identification of the violations, if any, would have been made at the threshold stage itself.”
The riverside project, which has 180 residential units, came up on the banks of the Chilavannur lake in the city.
While a single judge of the High Court had ordered that the structure constructed in violation of the CRZ norms should be demolished, the Division Bench had ordered that it should not be demolished but slapped a fine of ₹1 crore on the builder.
The authority moved the Supreme Court against the order of the Division Bench.
KCZMA stand
The authority’s stand that it “did not have an enforcement mechanism and is dependent on the corporation for the same” failed to satisfy the Bench.
While noting that enforcement was different from detection of violations, the court held that there could be “hardly any doubt about the bounden duty of this authority to play a crucial role in preserving the environment in the coastal area and it cannot wash its hands of by giving an explanation for inaction as the alleged absence of an enforcement force.”
