Non-mandatory nature of guidelines permits issuance of a No Objection Certificate despite public safety concerns.

COMMON ORDER

(Made by the Hon'ble Chief Justice)

These two petitions pertain to a proposed petroleum retail outlet on Mahatma Gandhi Road in the heart of Puducherry proper and the petitioner, espousing a public cause, refers to the failure by the private petroleum company and the local authorities in taking relevant considerations into account before choosing the site for the retail outlet.

2. Shell India Markets Pvt. Ltd proposes to set up a company owned and managed retail outlet at the site. The said private company, arrayed as the seventh respondent in both the petitions, has obtained permission by way of a no-objection certificate dated November 11, 2019 from the local government. W.P.No.34652 of 2019 was filed even before the permission had been obtained and its purpose was to obtain a direction on the appropriate authorities to ensure that no permission in such regard was granted. After the permission was obtained, W.P.No.7280 of 2020 was filed challenging the issuance of the no-objection certificate.

3. Three principal grounds have been taken by the petitioner in opposing the setting up of the petrol outlet at the relevant site. The petitioner complains that the proposed site is perilously close to residential buildings and is in the heart of the most populated part of town. The petitioner also relies on photographs of the site and the sketch-map that had been filed by the private oil company to obtain permission to demonstrate that the proposed site is at an intersection of a main road with a narrower side road. The third count of objection is that the proposed outlet does not maintain the appropriate distance norms, as it ought to have been at least 100 metre away from any other Anganwadi facility.

4. In support of the first contention that the proposed site is in the middle of a residential hub, the petitioner refers to an order dated September 5, 2017 passed on W.P.No.23546 of 2017 (B.Moorthi vs. The District Revenue Officer) by a Division Bench of this court. At paragraph 4 of the Division Bench judgment, the court referred to the health hazards caused by evaporation of petroleum in and around the outlets. The Bench went on to observe that the effects of contamination at petrol stations can be felt in buildings located within 100 metre and referred to articles based on research indicating that airborne organic compounds, like benzene, increase the risk of cancer. The Bench also referred to the deleterious effect of setting up a petrol pump near any place which houses a substantial number of children.

5. The further case of the petitioner is that the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) has issued guidelines in 2009, generally referred to as IRC:12-2009 for roadside fuel and service stations. The petitioner points out that the avowed purpose for issuing such guidelines was to ensure the free flow of traffic on the roads along the fuel stations and the minimum disturbance to other vehicular movement by vehicles using the facilities. Among the conditions indicated in IRC:12-2009, there is an instruction that in an urban area with a population of over one lakh there should be a 100 metre distance between the site of a petrol outlet and the intersection with any category of road, irrespective of the width of the carriageway. In the present case, however, the proposed site has an immediate road in the front and two roads immediately on the two sides, though it is possible that there is only o