The Sindh High Court (SHC) threw out on Friday a petition that challenged the environment impact report of the two flyovers and an underpass project in Clifton.
The developers will go to court on Monday to seek permission to resume work on the site, which has been dug up for the past six months.
The petition was filed by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) against Bahria Town developers who had dug up the main road connecting AT Naqvi Roundabout to Park Towers in order to build two flyovers and an underpass to improve traffic management.
Soon after construction began, DHA went to court claiming that the developers had failed to obtain an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report, which is mandatory under the law. On April 29 this year, an SHC bench had stopped constructions and ordered the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) to first obtain an EIA approval from the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and submit it to the court before carrying out any construction.
On court orders, the Sindh Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) conducted the EIA. This report was also challenged by DHA. On Friday, the SHC division bench, headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, passed orders to uphold the report as it was prepared under the law and dismissed DHA's petition.
Even if this project is not allowed to be constructed on the basis that it is a 68-storey residential and commercial building with other high rises in the offing, traffic in Clifton will increase manifold, nevertheless, and will cause severe traffic jams, the judges noted. "To say that the construction of this project will increase traffic volume does not appeal to logic," they bench noted.
The judges said the issue before the bench is the non-observance of the statutory provision of the Environment Protection Act 2014 and Regulation 2000 by Sepa while approving the EIA. However, the DHA's concerns on this issue were duly considered by Sepa by calling comments from the proponents in accordance with the law, the order noted.
The mandatory requirement of participation of the public in the hearings to review the EIA before its approval has been duly followed, the bench noted, adding that Sepa had called comments from the KMC, DHA as well as the general public. Thus, the approval process appeared to be in accordance with Section 12(3) of the Act.
The bench also overruled DHA's objection that Sepa should have rejected or accepted its objections through a speaking order. Referring to the contention that no Strategic Environmental Assessment, which is a prerequisite, was conducted, the bench said that the Environmental Protection Act 1997 and Regulations of 2000 are silent on the matter.
The bench said the requirement of submitting a Strategy Environmental Assessment is to be undertaken by government agencies, authorities and local councils before formulating plans and programmes for areas that may have environmental impact in Sindh. It does not pertain to a project, which is being constructed in an area that the government has already made a policy by declaring it a 'high-density zone'.
"In view of what has been discussed above, we find this petition meritless and dismiss the same," the bench noted.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 18th, 2014.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ