SC clears way for landfill in Mumbai’s Kanjurmarg, stays Bombay HC order

New Delhi, August 1 The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a Bombay High Court decision, which had restored nearly 120 hectares of land in Mumbai’s Kanjurmarg area as a "protected forest".

The interim relief, granted by a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, comes as a temporary reprieve to the Brihannumbai Municipal Corporation, allowing the civic body to continue developing the site as a landfill for garbage disposal.

Appearing before the apex court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that the land in question had historically been used as a landfill and was mistakenly notified as a "protected forest". He added that the notification of the disputed land as a “protected forest” was inadvertent, prompting the Maharashtra government to issue a de-notification to allow its continued use for waste management.

After hearing the submissions, the apex court remarked: "We will stay the order."

In its judgement passed on May 2, the Bombay High Court quashed the state government’s notification de-notifying 119.91 hectares of protected forest land at Kanjurmarg, which had originally been classified as "protected forest" under a 2008 notification.

A Bench of Justices G.S. Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sundaresan had rejected the state government’s contention that the original notification was issued in error and a 2003 Supreme Court order permitted the usage of the site as a landfill.

The Justice Kulkarni-led Bench observed that the original classification notifying the land in question as a “protected forest” was based on satellite imaging, ground-truthing, and earlier judicial orders related to mangrove protection.

Quashing the subsequent notification, it ruled that the de-notification violated Section 2(1) of the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), which mandates prior approval from the Union government before diverting forest land for non-forest use.

"The subject land, i.e. 119.91 hectares, is consequently restored to the status of being a protected forest. Any proposal to de-notify the same would need to be compliant with the due process stipulated in Section 2(1) of the FCA," the Bombay High Court had said, granting the civic body three months to comply with its judgment.

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