Introduction

The Hon’ble National Green Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (NGT), vide the judgment dated May 4, 2016 in the Original Application No. 222 of 2014 (Original Application), passed certain orders, which had wide scale impact on the real estate developers in the city of Bengaluru. The NGT directed that the buffer zones maintained around lakes and rajakaluves (drains) were to be increased substantially more than provided under the zoning regulations in the Revised Master Plan 2015 (RMP 2015). The RMP 2015 provided for buffer zones of 30 meters from the centre of the lake, for primary rajakaluves it was 50 meters from the centre of the rajakaluve, for secondary rajakaluves, it was fixed at 25 meters and for tertiary rajakaluve it was 15 meters. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India (Supreme Court) has recently passed a judgment in Civil Appeal No. 5016 of 2016 and other connected appeals on March 5, 2019 (Judgment). These appeals were filed challenging the NGT’s judgment dated May 4, 2016.

In this first part of a two-part blog, we discuss the facts that led to filing of the present appeals before the Supreme Court and a couple of key issues discussed in the Judgment.
Continue Reading Supreme Court’s Diktat on Powers of the NGT: Can Developers Finally Rest Easy? – Part 1