Failure to restore Chennai’s waterways: Madras high court stays Rs 100crore penalty imposed by NGT on Tamil Nadu govt

CHENNAI: In a reprieve to the Tamil Nadu government, the Madras high court on Tuesday passed an interim stay on Rs 100 crore penalty imposed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on the state, for failing to restore Chennai's waterways – the Adyar, the Cooum and the Buckingham Canal.

On February 13, the tribunal passed an interim order as the state failed to adhere to the action plan to revive the waterbodies within 36 months from April 2015.

Directing that government to pay the penalty to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the tribunal said the money shall be utilised to restore the waterbodies.

Aggrieved, Tamil Nadu moved the present appeal before the high court on the ground that the tribunal's order suffered non-application of mind, was based on mistake of fact and contrary to the principles of natural justice, arbitrary and unreasonable.

The state claimed that imposing such penalty was outside the scope of powers confined under the National Green Tribunal Act.

When the appeal came up for hearing, a division bench of Justice R Subbiah and Justice Krishnan Ramasamy stayed the operation of the order passed by the tribunal, only as to the portion that imposed the penalty.

The bench then ordered notice to the tribunal and petitioner Jawaharlal Shanmugam.

The NGT passed the order on a batch of pleas including one moved by Shanmugam seeking a direction to the state to restore and revive the waterbodies.

The Adyar and the Cooum are two of the most polluted rivers to flow through any major urban agglomeration anywhere in the world and the state government was accountable for the situation, the tribunal observed in its order.