NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Friday greenlighted Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai’s theme garden that came up at the site of the more than 100-year-old Khajuria lake in Kandivali (West), overturning a 2018 judgment of the Bombay HC directing the Maharashtra government and MCGM to demolish the constructions and restore the lake. However, SC asked MCGM to maintain and preserve the existing park as a green area in perpetuity, exclusively for public use without any predominant commercial activity. The park serves as a vital recreational nucleus for children, offering them safe spaces for play and physical activity; provides senior citizens dedicated areas for walking and social interaction; and creates opportunities for community engagement and leisure. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh also directed MCGM to “constitute an expert committee within three months to explore the feasibility of developing an alternative water body in nearby areas to compensate for the ecological functions of the original water body”. Writing the judgment, Justice Kant further asked MCGM to undertake a comprehensive exercise within a year for the ecological restoration of water bodies that are dying, and file compliance reports before HC. It requested HC “to see that the directions issued by the SC are complied with in letter and spirit”.Interestingly, HC’s 2018 judgment was passed by a bench of which Justice A S Oka, who retired recently as an SC judge, was a part. The case lingered on in the SC, with the verdict finally delivered five days after Justice Oka’s retirement. Allowing MCGM’s appeal, the bench said though HC’s views were well-intentioned and, prima facie, a correct interpretation of settled notions such as the public trust doctrine, they required reconsideration through the “prism of practical realities and evolved ground conditions”. Justice Kant said, “There cannot be a simplistic binary choice between a park or a pond, as each serves distinct ecological and social functions contingent upon specific circumstances, geographical location, and evolving usage patterns”.The verdant recreational park that came up over the so-called lake, one that had been reduced to a garbage dump over the years and could not support flora and fauna, is now a well-maintained urban oasis, teeming with mature trees, as the appeals are being finally decided more than 15 years after it came up at the site, he added. “It provides an essential green space in an increasingly concretised urban environment, with trees and other foliage contributing significantly to oxygen generation, air purification, and microclimate regulation,” the bench said. Implementing HC’s directives at this stage would engender consequences that contravene the very environmental principles they sought to uphold.
