New Delhi: Centre has filed an intervention application in the Supreme Court on Thursday for urgent hearing of petitions against the Madras High Court's order of 8th April, 2019 which had quashed entire land acquisition proceedings for the Rs 10,000 crores Chennai Salem Project which forms the part of Bharatmala Praiyojna and other projects of construction of National Highway.
Earlier, when the matter had reached Supreme Court, the court had asked the parties to submit their compliation and had listed the matter for hearing on 28th January 2020 but due to other engagements and then lockdown, the plea could not be taken up.
Centre, through its IA claimed that the project, which is "wholly detrimental in public interest", has been stalled and the HC's order has resulted in major setback in all other projects of construction of National Highways.
"It is submitted that the Bharatmala Paryojna was a part of the optimization exercise, for which relatively straighter Green Field alignments were identified by MoRTH for connecting important economic centers. In the present SLP, the proposed project from Chennai to Salem Corridor of 277.300 km was one such Green Field Corridor identified in the State of Tamil Nadu which primarily aimed at eliminating the bottlenecks exiating along the present corridors, and reducing the travel time between the two economic centers," read the application.