Mumbai: After fighting for over eight months, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd on Monday finally gave up its proposal and agreed to demands of the Parsi community. The community had dragged MMRCL to the Supreme Court, asking it to divert the underground route of the controversial Metro III line, as the same poses a threat to two of their fire temples in South Mumbai.
The community had first approached the Bombay High Court with a prayer to divert the route of the Metro III line as the tunnelling and drilling work could ‘desecrate’ the holy fires of the two Atash Behrams, situated at Princess Street and Kalbadevi. The community apprehended that tunnelling work can have an adverse impact on the fire temples, which are heritage structures.
Before the court, the MMRCL, however, maintained that the work will not have any impact on the structures or the holy fires. However, before the apex court, the MMRCL changed its stance. In an affidavit submitted in the apex court, MMRCL stated that it has decided to construct its Kalbadevi station box at least 20 metres away from the Wadia Atash Behram. Confirming the news, advocate Zerick Dastur said, “MMRCL has filed an affidavit in the SC.
It has agreed to construct its station box at least 20 metres away from the Wadia Atash Behram.” In the original plan, the said station box was very close to the Wadia Atash Behram and, in fact, it overlapped by two metres. The affidavit has been taken on record by the SC bench of Justices Uday Lalit and R Subhash Reddy and the matter will be heard further in due course of time.
