HC vacates stay on Metro work near heritage building in Mumbai

The Bombay High Court today vacated the stay imposed by it on the drilling and tunnelling work near the heritage J N Petit Institute building in South Mumbai for the proposed Metro III line.
The direction came after the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) submitted that it had implemented all suggestions given by a committee set up by the court in this regard.
While permitting MMRCL to resume work in the area, a bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice M S Sonak directed it to ensure that no damage was caused to the heritage buildings in the area, including the 119-year-old J N Petit Institute and Library.

In September this year, the trustees of the Institute filed a plea alleging that the tunnelling work was damaging the foundations of several heritage and iconic buildings in the area, including its own library and garden.
The high court had then restrained the MMRCL from carrying out any drilling and excavation work in and around the J N Petit Institute's library and garden.
The bench also directed that a committee be constituted to study the effects of such tunnelling work on the buildings, and to suggest ways to continue with the work without damaging the buildings in the area.

The committee, comprising a structural engineer each from MMRCL and J N Petit Institute, and experts from IIT-Bombay had subsequently conducted inspections and suggested several precautionary measures to prevent damage to the buildings.

The MMRCL submitted that it had implemented all the suggestions given by the committee and that the panel too was satisfied by all the precautionary and remedial measures implemented by it in the area.
The bench, thus, vacated its stay but directed that the committee continue to monitor the metro work in the area.