The Madras High Court on Tuesday revived the hearing on a 2014 writ petition in which the court began to prod the government to save the Buckingham Canal, that flows from Andhra Pradesh to Villupuram and cuts across Chennai city for a length of over 44 km, from being shrunk and destroyed due to encroachments.
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Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy were shocked to hear from amicus curiae S.R. Raghunathan that the case was heard with all vigour during the tenure of former Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul (now a Supreme Court judge) between 2014 and 2017 but was not listed for hearing after that.
The judges directed the Registrar (Judicial) M.N. Senthil Kumar to hold an inquiry and find out which court official was responsible for not having listed the case for hearing since 2017 and initiate appropriate action. They said, it was not right on the part of the High Court Registry to have not listed a case for hearing for such a long time.
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Appalled to see the photographs produced by the amicus curiae to show how the canal had been shrunk at several locations and the unhygienic way in which it was being maintained, the Bench granted two weeks time for State Government Pleader P. Muthukumar to come up with a roadmap on restoring the canal to its old glory.
Mr. Raghunathan also informed the court that the Buckingham Canal had been declared as a National Waterway under The National Waterway (Kakinada-Puducherry Stretch of Canals and the Kaluvelly Tank, Bhadrachalam-Rajahmundry Stretch of River Godavari and Wazirabad-Vijayawade Stretch of River Krishna) Act of 2008.
Therefore, the judges directed the counsel for Inland Waterways Authority of India to also obtain instructions on steps that had been taken by it so far to maintain the canal well and order removal of encroachments. Chief Justice Bhandari expressed deep concern over the waterbodies in the State not having been given adequate attention.
“What is that you intend to do? Do you want to destroy all waterbodies in the State?” the Chief Justice asked the Government Pleader and said that the High Court would set its house in order by ordering an inquiry into the case not having been listed for hearing for last five years. Similarly, he insisted upon concrete action by the government too.
Stating that the government was under an obligation to protect the environment, he said, the State need not expect court orders to perform its duties. The Chief Justice wanted to know the steps that had been taken in the last five years to rejuvenate the Buckingham Canal and warned that any lapse would be viewed seriously.