The High Court on Thursday dismissed the writ petitions against the Metro Rail alignment between Greenlands and Rd No 5 of Jubilee Hills stretch.
Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao informed the Legislative Assembly about this positive development for the project. Stating that the judgment of the High Court gives a major boost to the Metro Rail project, HMR MD NVS Reddy indicated that construction of the remaining 154 pillars of the total 171 pillars could now be taken up in this stretch of 4.6 km with acquisition of affected properties, removal of traffic bottlenecks, etc.
Advocate General K.Ramakrishna Reddy argued on behalf of HMR and State Government.
“The judgement copy is yet to be received and studied in depth. It over-ruled the objections raised against the alignment and the project and upheld the procedure for fixing the alignment by experts, the legality of the project and the State Government’s legal competence to execute the project. It has permitted Metro Rail construction works as per the Master Plan of the city,” the HMR said in a press release on Thursday.
Metro Rail works between Greenlands Jn and Road No.5 of Jubilee Hills were earlier stayed by High Court in March 2012 when the alignment of corridor-III; the powers of the State Government to execute the project; the legality of executing the project under AP Tramways Act, etc., were challenged by mainly the traders of Greenlands, Ameerpet, Madhura Nagar, Yousufguda and Sri Krishna Nagar (GAMYS).
Though the Division Bench of the High Court considered a writ appeal filed by HMR against the stay order and granted liberty to it to carry out the project works without acquiring the affected properties and existing structures in August 2012, the construction works could not be undertaken in most of the areas of the disputed stretch due to narrow roads, traffic restrictions, stay on acquisition of properties, resistance from the property owners/tenants, etc., (INN)