NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today directed the Centre to form a committee to carry out a review of the controversial 125km-long Katra-Banihal section of the rail link to Kashmir.
A bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Siddharth Mridul, while disposing of the plea, directed the ministry to submit the report of the committe within four weeks.
“Why are you objecting to the concerns raised by the petitioner? What is the difficulty in forming a committee and look into the issues raised in the petition?
“We need not go into the arguments and counter arguments. We feel that the respondents be given more time. We direct the Railways to form a committee and submit the report within four weeks,” the bench said.
The court was hearing a petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), through advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had alleged that the railways have not constituted a committee within the stipulated period of four weeks given in May this year.
The plea also alleged that the railway is ignoring the serious concerns raised by the experts regarding the 125km long Katra-Banihal section of the rail link to Kashmir.
The High Court had in May directed the Railway Board to judge the relative technical merits and demerits of the existing and the proposed alternative alignment by an expert committee (which will include E Sreedharan, former chief of DMRC) within eight weeks.
The Board had also been asked to take a decision regarding the alignment and other issues like cost within four weeks thereafter.
The Qazigund-Katra leg of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project was announced by the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002.
The petition had alleged the Ministry of Railways has ignored serious concerns repeatedly raised by various experts and its own officials, including Member (Engineering), on a flawed alignment which most say overlooks the basic human needs of safety, security and comfort while travelling which render the entire project unworkable. (AGENCIES)
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