New Delhi, Feb 24.
The Supreme Court’s green bench on Friday stayed for now the laying of concrete paver blocks in the Matheran Ecologically Sensitive Zone (ESZ) as part of a pilot project for trial of e-rickshaws in the hill station.
The bench, comprised Justices B.R. Gavai and Vikram Nath, also directed the Monitoring Committee established (under Notification S.O. No. 133(E) dated 04.02.2003) of the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India, to submit a detailed report on the pilot project.
In the interim the court stayed the laying of paver blocks. The report will be submitted in eight weeks, the court said. The directions came on an application by three representative association of the horsemen, ghodawala sangathans, in Matheran.
The applications were filed seeking a modification of an earlier May 12, 2022, order passed in the case of the Shramik Rickshaw Chalak-Malak Sevasanstha (a representative body of hand rickshaw pullers) in which the court had permitted the implementation of the pilot project.
Appearing for the applicants, senior advocate Shyam Divan, argued that the order allowing plying of e-rickshaws in Matheran fails to take into account the historical perspective and the unique place that Matheran occupies.
It is the only pedestrian hill station in Asia, the absence of any motor vehicles and the use of horses, toy train etc to commute and reach various sightseeing locations spread across the hill stations has been the essence of its charm, he said, urging the court protect this.
This heritage concept needed to be kept alive, he said. E-rickshaws were a threat to the ethos of Matheran, he said. The cheaper mode of transportation will effectively result in the peace of the hill town being disrupted by the constant rumble of the motorized vehicles.
The pilot project is essentially resulting in creeping motorization of Matheran, he argued.
In order to facilitate the plying of e-rickshaws in the Matheran ESZ, the municipal authorities have paved the roads with paver blocks thereby making extensive and permanent changes to the ecology of the place, he said.
Such widespread construction activities in the Matheran ESZ under the garb of the project, by the state of Maharashtra and the Matheran Municipal Council, have set to naught all the steps taken over the years to protect the ecology and environment of the Matheran ESZ, he stated.
The amicus K. Parameshwar on the contrary argued that the lack of transportation in Matheran has caused great difficulty to the people living there.
Whether it was the transportation of essential commodities like vegetables or LPG cylinders, or the commute of school children, people fell back on non-motorized means of transport, he said. This was evidence of a colonial mindset.
The age-old practice of using hand pulled rickshaws ought to be deprecated, and it was this means of transport that was sought to be replaced with eco-friendly e-rickshaws, he said. He also argued that when Matheran was declared an ESZ, e-vehicles did not exist, but now that they do, there’s no reason why they should not ply in such eco-sensitive zones.
(The applicant ghodawala sangathans were represented by senior advocate Shyam Divan along with advocate Ms Nina Nariman. They were briefed by a team from M/s Karanjawala & Co. Advocates led by Ms. Tahira Karanjawala, Principal Associate, along with Arjun Sharma, Principal Associate, Shreyas Maheshwari and Ritwik Mohapatra, Associates.
The state of Maharashtra was represented by Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Chief Standing Counsel of Maharashtra. Advocate K. Parmeshwar was the amicus curiae.)
