The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that wider roads were required in the Char Dham region of Uttarakhand to transport crucial military equipment like the BrahMos to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) near the Indo-China border.
The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud is hearing a petition filed by NGO Citizens for Green Doon challenging the Stage-I forest and wildlife clearance granted. This clearance was given for the improvement and expansion of feeder roads by cutting down trees.
"The Army has to take the BrahMos… a large area will be required. If it results in landslides, the Army will tackle it. How do we go if the roads are not wide enough?" Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, argued in the court.
In his argument, KK Venugopal said that the country needs to defend itself as it is vulnerable. For this roads have to be made available to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) despite the fear of environmental disasters. Two days ago while hearing the case the bench had asked if it could override defence needs on environmental grounds.
"We cannot deny the fact that at such a height, the security of the nation is at stake. Can the highest constitutional court say that we will override defence needs particularly in the face of recent events? Can we say that environment will triumph over the defence of the nation? Or we say that defence concerns be taken care of so that environmental degradation does not take place?" the bench had said.
The argument given by NGO Citizens was that the project was meant to facilitate the Char Dham Yatra conceived in 2016 so that more tourists can trek up the mountains. The Supreme Court had earlier ruled that roads cannot be wider than 5 metres in the precarious terrain, due to the risks of landslides.
The project to widen 889 km of hill roads to provide all-weather connectivity between major pilgrimage sites in Uttarakhand has led to a heated debate. While the majority favoured increasing the width to 12 metre, others backed 5.5-metre width for roads which Venugopal called irrelevant for the needs of the Army today.
