The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Kerala government to reconstruct the Palarivattom flyover in Kochi.
A three-judge Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman on Tuesday disposed of the appeal filed by the State against a Kerala High Court order to conduct a load test on the existing flyover.
The court order has not been published yet. The State was represented by advocate G. Prakash, who confirmed the court’s order.
The government had argued that cracks had started appearing on the existing flyover within two years of its construction. The state said the reconstruction project was notified based on a high-level technical committee report in October 2019.
The committee had entirely accepted the proposal submitted by E. Sreedharan, the architect of the Delhi Metro. The government has already issued an offer submitted by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to take over the rehabilitation of the flyover.
“The proposal submitted by Dr. E Sreedharan recommends reconstruction and assures a service life of 100 years,” the State had argued.
The State had pleaded urgency to the apex court, saying the damage to the flyover was extensive. Besides, the bridge was central to the smooth flow of traffic in the city. Any delay in the reconstruction would bring traffic in the entire city, the financial capital of the State, to a complete halt.
“There are about 2,100 cracks on the flyover and out of which 99 are of more than the tolerable limit of 0.3mm,” the government had said in its petition.
The State questioned the high court's intervention in policy, saying the latter should not have interfered with the Administrative decisions taken by the government on the subjective satisfaction of the issue, and that too based on an expert report.
