Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has directed expediting the Tarakeshwar-Bishnupur railway line project which has been stalled since 2017.
The bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das) directed that state officials should meet Eastern Railway officials to expedite the work. The project has been stalled since 2017 due to a dispute surrounding a waterbody ‘Babadighi’. The court said that private interest should not prevail over public interest. The court said that the interest of 250-odd people cannot trump interest of 2.5 lakh people who will benefit from the project. “It is shocking to the conscience of the court that a railway project has been stalled for the past eight years,” the bench said.
The court also did not accept the pleadings by the counsel representing some 284 co-sharers of the waterbody who argued that Railway tracks over the waterbody would harm the environment, damage pisciculture and obstruct the waterflow. The CJ said: “Do you know there is a Railway line built across the Bay of Bengal? You don’t because you never went out of state”.
The bench dismissed the PIL and directed that both the state and Railways must sit together to sort out the problem and start the pending construction within three months from the date of order.
The state and the Hooghly Superintendent of Police was directed to provide all support and adequate police force for the completion of the project.