The court emphasized the importance of disclosing all material facts and maintaining genuine public interest in public interest litigations, and highlighted the need to obtain necessary permissions for public projects, including environmental clearances.

JUDGMENT :

G.S. Kulkarni, J.

1. The petitioners in this public interest litigation primarily question the infrastructure project undertaken by the Municipal Corporation alongwith other authorities namely the State Government and the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority to connect the areas of Versova and Lokhandwala. The public project interalia is to construct vehicular bridge at the junction of Yari Road and Lokhandwala Back Road, near Amarnath Tower building having single span steel arch of length of 110 meters with approach road on either side(for short "the said project")

2. The petitioners no 1 to 13 are stated to be residents of Versova-Mumbai and claim to be active participants in the conservation and beautification of environment. Petitioner no.14 is the Co-operative Housing Society of the other petitioners (for short "the co-operative-society").

3. Case of the petitioners is that in or around May 2013 the petitioner no.14 issued letters to various authorities including respondent no 1 to 5 informing them that the contractor appointed by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), had off loaded Soil Testing Equipment, next to the mangroves close to the premises of petitioner no.14 Cooperative Society. The co-operative Society requested the authorities, to appraise it, as to the reason behind off-loading of the equipment next to the mangroves. There was no response to these letters from any of the authorities. The members of the co-operative society, hence enquired with the workers/contractor undertaking the work, of the reason behind soil testing, when they were informed that the same was being undertaken for the proposed work of the MCGM, to construct link road/bridges to connect certain regions of Versova to Lokhandwala.

4. The petitioners contend that thereafter the co-operative society pulled out the relevant plans from the website of respondent no.2. The western suburbs part of the plan showed that amongst other constructions of public roads in the western region, there were three proposed link roads which would pass through the mangroves so as to link Versova and Lokhandwala region. Details of the three proposed roads are set out in paragraph 6 of the petition.

5. The petitioners contend that execution of the project work would involve uprooting of mangroves. They say that the project plan portrays an unwarranted development as according to them, it would not, in any manner resolve the prevailing traffic situation in the area. They say that on the contrary, the MCGM’s plan would increase traffic and bottlenecks and add to the citizens woes. The petitioners contend that during 2014-2015, the co-operative society again issued various letters to the concerned authorities raising their concern on the proposed link road/bridges passing through mangroves and the possible encroachment in and around the mangroves. They also pointed out that the plan had too many defects which were elaborated in these letters issued to the authorities. However again no reply was received to these letters.

6. In paragraph nine of the petition, the 'major or immediate concern' for the petitioners is that the plan for development/construction of road 2 and 3 under the project was designed in such manner that it would result in uprooting the mangrove vegetation. It is their case that road no.3 was completely unnecessary and it would also encourage encroachment. On 1/1/2018 the cooperative society by its letter of the even date urged the authorities to re-consider the plan regarding the proposed link roads as also recorded their concern on the proposed destruction of mangroves.

7. The petitioners have averred that 'Bombay Environmental Action Group” (for short" the BEAG") had approached this Court in a public interest petition against State of Maharashtra and others (PIL No. 86 of 2006) which was filed seeking protection of the mangrove areas. In the said PIL this Court had passed an interim order dated 6 October 2005 directing