Madras High Court reserves orders in cases challenging NGT’s construction ban on 1 km radius around Pallikaranai marshland

According to the senior counsel representing CREDAI-Chennai, construction activities had come to a standstill on 3,474 hectares in South Chennai because of the ban imposed by the NGT.

The Madras High Court on Wednesday (November 11, 2026) reserved its orders on a batch of writ petitions filed by CREDAI-Chennai and others questioning National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) authority to impose a blanket ban on new constructions within a radius of one kilometre from the existing boundaries of the Pallikaranai marshland, a Ramsar site spread over 1,247.54 hectare.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan deferred their verdict without mentioning any date as to when the orders would be pronounced. The decision was taken after hearing senior counsel P.S. Raman for CREDAI-Chennai and Additional Advocate General P.V. Balasubramaniam for Tamil Nadu State Wetlands Authority (TNSWA).

When the hearing on the batch of cases began on Wednesday, the judges wondered whether it would be appropriate for them to accept a much smaller interim Zone of Influence (ZoI), as it had been proposed by the TNSWA, around the Pallikaranai marshland when the Supreme Court was already seized of the larger issue of protection of all wetlands spread across the country.

In that case, Mr. Raman urged the court to set aside the construction ban imposed by the NGT on an arbitrary area of one kilometre around the boundaries of the marshland and remand the matter to the tribunal for a fresh consideration. If the High Court could not accept an interim ZoI due to a pending case in the Supreme Court, how could the NGT impose a construction ban arbitrarily, he asked.

The senior counsel said, construction activities had come to a standstill on 3,474 hectares in South Chennai because of the ban imposed by the NGT and the property owners as well as realtors had been put to great amount of hardship. He also said, the boundaries of the marshland had not been demarcated conclusively so far and that they were expected to shrink after a proper survey.

The TNSWA, on its part, submitted a map of a proposed interim ZoI spread over 128.19 hectares in 36 different survey numbers. It said, even within the interim ZoI, construction activities need not be banned throughout the entire zone and that it could be regulated based on site-specific, scientific and hydrological characteristics.

The authority told the court that there could be a prohibition on blocking, diversion or obstruction of established inlet and outlet channels, natural drains or hydrological pathways in the proposed interim ZoI.

Similarly, dumping of solid waste, construction waste and other waste on the drainage pathways could be prohibited and there could be a prohibition also on discharge of untreated sewage, effluents or wastewater into the watercourses connected with the wetland. Permanent alteration of established hydrological connections could also be banned and red category industries with high pollution potential could be prohibited.

“In case of construction, necessary no objection certificate shall be obtained from the district-level wetlands management committee in accordance with the proposed regulatory mechanism. The proposed regulatory framework is intended to ensure that developmental activities do not obstruct the natural flow of water into or out of the Pallikaranai Ramsar site or adversely affect its ecological character together with balancing the development needs of the society and the government,” the TNSWA’s report read.

The court was also told that the final ZoI shall be determined only after completion of scientific and cadastral exercises and ground truthing in accordance with the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017 and the guidelines framed under them.