Supreme Court wonders why PILs are filed when constructions happen in country
Supreme Court said on Friday while wondering why public interest litigations (PILs) are filed when infrastructure projects like highways are launched. The apex court's observation came while dealing with a petition over construction work for doubling of the railway tracks on the Vasco Da Gama-Kulem section of Tinaighat-Vasco Da Gama route in Goa.
«We are only wondering why this happens only in this country that when you start constructing a road in Himachal (Pradesh), the PILs come. When you start constructing a highway, national highways, the PILs come,» a bench of Justices Surya Kant and R Mahadevan observed.
«You tell us a single internationally famed tourist resort where the railway facility is not there,» the bench told the petitioner's counsel, adding, «Go to the Alps mountains and they take you through the snow in train.»
The top court was hearing a petition challenging the August 2022 verdict of the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court which had dismissed a PIL concerning the construction for doubling of the railway track.
The petitioners had alleged in the high court that the construction work was being carried out in violation of the statutory mandate to obtain prior permissions under the 2011 Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification, the Goa Irrigation Act, 1973, the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 and the Goa Town And Country Planning Act, among others.
During the hearing on Friday, the apex court observed that the project will strengthen the railway network in Goa and help reduce the burden on road
