The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the Director-General of Civil Aviation to file a report on the issues raised in public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the construction of overground Metro 2B corridor (DN Nagar to Mankhurd), passing through Swami Vivekanand (SV) Road in the vicinity of Juhu airport in Mumbai.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik has kept the matter next month.
A PIL filed by Harit Desai, a social worker and resident of Juhu, claimed that AAI in 2017 had issued a NOC permitting construction of the corridor through the funnel zone in violation of the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Height Restrictions for Safeguarding of Aircraft Operations) Rules, 2015.
It contended stated that the no-objection certificate (NOC) given by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for construction of the Metro corridor did not take into consideration the “potential threat” posed by the overground route passing through an airport’s imaginary “funnel” zone – the approach path of a low-flying aircraft.