SC Stays Mega Hotel Project In Jilling Estate

The Supreme Court, already upset with the Uttarakhand government for failing to take steps to curb forest fires, has put a stay on a mega hotel project in the Bhimtal-Mukteshwar region. The Supreme Court stay order comes after a petition alleged it would lead to large scale felling of trees in the lush green forest Jilling Estate area.

Hearing the matter, a bench of Justices A S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan admitted the appeal filed by Birendra Singh, who had challenged the go-ahead given by Uttarakhand HC, and revived a stay on any kind of tree felling and construction activities at the site in Jilling Estate.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court asked the project proponent to file its response to the petition within six weeks and posted the matter for further hearing on Aug 12.

Jilling Estate is home to one of the most popular cottage resport by the same name, owned by Steve Lall, his wife Parvati and dautgher Nandini. Their estate is spread over 120 acres and has four cottages. 

The Petition

For the petitioner, advocates P B Suresh and Vipin Nair argued that HC erred by permitting construction activities at the site based on 'single-window clearance' despite the proponent not getting the mandatory prior environmental clearance under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 2006.

The counsel said if the thickly forested patch was permitted to be deforested for a hotel project, which intends to carry out construction activities on an area of 20,000 square feet, it would cause irreparable damage to the fragile ecology of the area that could adversely impact the interest of the state to maintain adequate forest cover.