HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the petition filed by Congress MP A Revanth Reddy challenging the order of the Telangana High Court which dismissed the PIL filed against the state government’s decision to demolish the old Secretariat buildings and construct a new integrated Secretariat complex in its place at Saifabad adjacent to Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad. The apex court declined to entertain the petition saying that the MP is not a petitioner before the High Court.
While dismissing the petition, the Supreme Court has kept open all questions of law raised in the present case to facilitate the petitioner to raise them before the National Green Tribunal at Chennai where his case is pending.
In his case before the NGT, the Congress MP alleged that the decision to demolish the buildings was taken without obtaining required environmental clearance and that the demolition started on the midnight of July 7 without any notice to the general public. He said that the ecology of the surrounding areas was badly affected due to the state government’s decision.
On July 17 this year, the Telangana High Court dismissed the PIL filed by Prof PL Vishweshwar Rao, vice-president of Telangana Jana Samithi, and Cheruku Sudhakar of Telangana Inti Party, saying that it did not find any merits in the PIL.
The bench took into consideration the submission of assistant solicitor general N Rajeshwar Rao, appearing for the central government, that the demolition activity does not require prior environmental clearance as per the Environment Impact Assessment notification, 2006.
