The National Green Tribunal (NGT) ruled that the stay on the sale of the 25,000 sq meters partially affected coastal zone plot at Nerul, adjoining the NRI Seawoods, will continue even as CIDCO defended its tender process and denied any environmental violations.
The Western Zonal Bench of NGT has earlier on August 22 admitted two sets of petitions by Navi Mumbai Environment Preservation Society (NMEPS) and another by a group of city residents and directed CIDCO not to proceed with the tender process of Plot 2A in Sectors 54-56-58. The petitioners challenged the plot sale, pointing out that it violates the coastal regulation zone provisions as one-third of the area fall under CRZ1 and a similar area is CRZ-ll.
CIDCO filed its response challenging NGT's jurisdiction
CIDCO, meanwhile, filed its response challenging the NGT’s jurisdiction to admit the petitions and argued that the tender process fulfills all CRZ provisions. There is nothing in the law that prevents CIDCO from showing the CRZ1 area as part of the plot for sale, said the affidavit signed by Gajndra K Jangam, CIDCO’s Marketing Officer (Commercial).
CIDCO denied the petitioners’ contention that the plot falls under a no-development zone. Even Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has in its Development Plan (DP) that was released on August 10 marked the plot as developable for civic centre while showing rest of the area as open space for garden, CIDCO admitted.
Picking up the thread from here, NatConnect Foundation has requested the NMMC to join the legal battle with an Intervention Application. “We have already requested NMMC Commissioner Rajesh Narvekar to put his foot down and insist on preserving the plot as earmarked in the DP,” B N Kumar, director of NatConnect Foundation said. NatConnect will take this forward with NMMC next week.
The Tribunal gave two weeks to respond
The Tribunal - comprising Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh as judicial member and Dr Vijay Kulkarni as the expert member – gave two weeks to the petitioners to respond. The final hearing is fixed for December 20, advocate Meenaz Kakalia appearing for the residents group said.
CIDCO argued that the developable plot is on the landward side from the same existing road much as the existing NRI complex. Both share the same compound wall. Substantial part of the plot is, therefore, unaffected by the CRZ restrictions, the affidavit said.
The tender process has sufficient safeguards as it stipulates that the bidder would have to obtain CRZ clearances, CIDCO said.
