Metro will run along CMH Road

Metro will run along CMH Road


Express Features
First Published : 11 Feb 2009 08:05:35 AM IST
Last Updated : 11 Feb 2009 03:55:55 PM IST

The High Court on Tuesday refused to accept the arguments of the shop owners of CMH road regarding alignment of the Metro Rail project. The court has also cleared the few hurdles of Metro while dismissing the few writ petitions.

After taking into consideration expert opinion and traffic density, the BMRCL has decided to put the track on CMH road, Justice K L Manjunath observed while hearing the petition of Devaki Nataraj and others, residents of CMH road.

The petitioner’s advocate argued that BMRCL had not considered the fact that the Old Madras Road was more suitable than the CMH road for the Metro Project.

He argued that the CMH Road is very narrow and traffic congestion on it was much higher than Old Madras road.

However, the court did not accept the argument of the petitioner’s advocate.

“The CMH Road is bigger than Avenue Road and Chikkapete Road (both are in Central Bangalore). You are not an expert to talk about alignment of the project.

The alignment on CMH Road is more beneficiary to people,” the court observed.

The petitioner has no authority to challenge the alignment in a writ petition which challenged the acquisition proceedings of the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB).

Petitioner’s argument The KIADB has no authority to acquire land for Metro Project under section 28 (1) of the KIADB Act, which was meant for acquiring land for setting up industries.

The KIADB had not considered the objections filed by the petitioners and the acquisition proceedings under the KIADB Act were illegal and arbitrary, the petitioner argued.

The Old Madras Road gives vital connections to enter East Bangalore. The alignment along CMH Road would be around 2 km in length, whereas the alignment along Old Madras Road would be 1.5 km long and a lot of space was available at the Old Madras Road for parking and setting up of a station, the petitioners said.

The court was about to pass the orders in this case, but the petitioner’s advocate sought time for submitting more records, so the hearing was adjourned to Wednesday.

Dismissed The High Court has dismissed the petitions of Uma Maheshwari and four others, all residents of CMH Road. The court also dismissed the petition of Prema Vijayarangam and seven others. All the petitioners have challenged the land acquisition at CMH Road. The High Court gave a green signal to the setting up of a station at Trinity Circle, while dismissing the petition. The court adjourned the hearing of some cases to Wednesday