CITIZENS FOR GREEN DOON Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present case has a history fraught with litigation, with multiple proceedings before the National Green Tribunal,"NGT" and this Court. Before going into the history of the litigation, it is important to provide context for the public project in question in the case.

(2.) The Chardham Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojna,"Project" is a program of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways,"MoRTH", which was announced on 23 December 2016. The Project aims to widen the roads of approximately 900 kms of national highways, in order to ensure safer, smoother and faster traffic movement. As the name suggests, these highways connect the holy shrines which have been labelled as the "Chote Char Dham" in the State of Uttarakhand - Yamunotri (NH- 94/134 up to Janki Chatti), Gangotri (NH-108), Kedarnath (NH-109, up to Sonprayag), Badrinath (NH-58) and the Tanakpur-Pithoragarh stretch of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra route (NH-125).

(3.) These shrines represent different traditions of the Hindu religion - with Yamunotri and Gangotri being Shakti or goddess shrines, Kedarnath being a Shaiva temple, and Badrinath a Vaishnava site. They are located in an area called Kedarkhand (largely today's Garhwal) in the Skanda Purana. The locations of these shrines were earlier considered to be occupied by glaciers (named Champasar, Gangotri, Chorabari and Satopanth) in their entirety, which have since started melting. Even today, they are stated to be located in paraglacial zones, which are considered to be ecologically sensitive.