Review plea filed in Supreme Court against its Chennai-Salem Expressway order

A review petition against the Supreme Court‘s Chennai-Salem Expressway judgment has been filed in the apex court on Thursday.

Yuvaraj, a resident of Salem, has filed the review petition seeking review of the Order dated 08-12-2020 passed by the Apex Court in Civil Appeal No. 3992 of 2020 in the challenge against the judgment and order dated 08-04-2019 passed by the Madras High Court in writ petition No. 21242 of 2018 as a common judgment along with and over 16 other writ petitions.

In the petition, the substantial questions of law that arises before the Court for consideration is that whether “matters connected therewith” in the expression “An Act to provide for the declaration of certain highways to be national highways and for matters connected therewith” in the Objects and Preamble of the National Highways Act, 1956 refers to matters subsequent to the declaring of an existing highway to be a national highway, like acquiring land and building it to the standards and specifications of a National Highway as prescribed by Indian Road Congress under the 1st Respondent and its operation and maintenance and NOT for acquiring land to build a green-field road/highway/national highway?

The review application is primarily premised on what the judges of the full bench of the Supreme Court did not have the occasion to consider that judicial review of public policy (contrary to Rex non potestpeccare) is permissible when delegatee acts beyond delegated powers as prescribed in the law laid down by this Court in 2007 Delhi Development Authority Case << 2008 (2) SCC 672>> and this Court did not have the occasion to consider the ground that the Respondent acted beyond powers delegated.

It was laid emphasis in the Petition that Judicial Review of Public Purpose is permissible when the concept of public purpose is lost without the ensuring of maximum benefit to the largest number of people through attempt of promoting public purpose to benefit a particular group of people or to serve any particular interest at the cost of the interest of a large section of people especially of the common people as per decision of this Court in 2011 Radhey Shyam’s case (2015).

“That these Grounds for Review, primarily the challenges to the constitutional permissibility / legislative competence of the Union to create new / green-field roads in the sphere of delimitation of powers between the Union and the State is a constitutional question that has never earlier been decided by any of the superior courts and is an issue that has to be dealt in the context of the law laid down by this Court’s 7-Judge Constitutional Bench in the 1990 Synthetics and Chemicals Ltd. Case and the 2007 Delhi Development Authority cases primarily. And, any holding/finding contrary to the law laid down in the above 2 decisions ought to be done only by a bench of similar strength or a larger strength,”

the petition reads.

On December 08 , 2020 the Supreme Court on gave the green signal for the NHAI and the Union government to acquire land for the construction of a 277.3 km-long Chennai-Krishnagiri-Salem national highway project worth over Rs 10,000 crore, saying “national highways are the arteries of India’s economy”.

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The eight-lane highway (NH179A and NH179B) is a part of the first phase of the Bharatmala Pariyojna project, which stretches across 24,800 km and has an estimated outlay of Rs 5.35 lakh crore, to improve the efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country by bridging critical infrastructure gaps.