Contempt petition in HC against NMMC’s service road project on Palm Beach Road

The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) is facing a contempt petition for allegedly falsifying data and providing incorrect information to the Bombay High Court regarding the construction of a service road parallel to the Nerul segment on the Palm Beach Road. The petitioner claims that the road is unnecessary and a waste of public money, and raises concerns about potential harm to nature. The NMMC is accused of giving varying data about the width and breadth of the roadwork. The municipal commissioner is currently studying the petition.

Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) is unable to complete the construction of a service road parallel to the Nerul segment on the Palm Beach Road after a contempt petition has been filed with the Bombay high court wherein the civic body is accused of falsifying data as well as misleading the court with incorrect information.

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Deepak Sehgal, a Navi Mumbai resident, filed the petition on July 3.

“The construction of the road is outrightly unnecessary and a sheer waste of public money. The project is being done at the cost of causing intentional harm to nature and that is the reason for filing this petition. The road is not going to serve any purpose to the existing residential areas or vehicular movement. This automatically raises the question of whether the ulterior intention of NMMC is to covertly facilitate the proposed construction work towards the seaside which is also stiffly opposed?” Sehgal questioned in the petition.

In September 2022, the NMMC proposed to construct a 465-metre service road passing through TS Chanakya junction to plot no 7 in sector 58 of Nerul.

The primary contention raised through the petition is that the NMMC has given varying data pertaining to the width and breadth of the roadwork.

“The duplicity of the administration to get the clearance from the HC was understood with the major difference in the width and length of the civil work. In an MCZMA meeting held on April 2022, the civic body stated of constructing a road of 465-metre long and 50-metre wide and another road of 151 metres with 10-metre width, but in the synopsis of a writ petition filed by NMMC in October 2022, the service road work is shown to be measuring as 610 metre and only 8.5 metre wide. There is a huge discrepancy, especially in the width of the road work within a mangrove belt is a matter of concern,” said Sunil Agarwal, an activist from Nerul.

Owing to the proximity the project was having with the mangrove belt, NMMC on June 14 sought permissions from the MCZMA and from the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). “NMMC was directed by both authorities to get clearance from the HC instead as the area where the road is to be constructed was observed to be falling within the 50-metre buffer zone of mangroves,” said Agarwal.

The respondents in the matter include NMMC commissioner Rajesh Narvekar, city engineer, NMMC, Sanjay Desai, the member secretary of MCZMA, Abhay Pimparkar and Sudhakar More, deputy Engineer, NMMC. “Even before clearance could be acquired from the HC, civil work had already begun by NMMC. I asked the team from Mangrove Cell and Wetland to conduct a site visit and eventually got the work stopped in May. Nevertheless, the nature of work stated to be undertaken with the MCZMA whereas the information provided with the HC for NOC is totally different,” said environmentalist Stalin D.

Administration, in the petition, is further stated to be providing false information to the court about the overall benefits the construction work can do to overall city traffic. “HC is being given the impression that this particular patch is the missing link to have a parallel service road from Belapur to Vashi. This is absolutely untrue as the stretch alongside Palm Beach road is wetland and in various parts, natural barriers are already present due to mangroves and destruction of them will again amount to a violation of environmental norms,” said Sehgal.

When contacted, the NMMC municipal commissioner Rajesh Narvekar said he is studying the petition and will decide the further course of action.