Madras High Court gives six months for Buckingham Canal restoration

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu government to restore the Buckingham canal, running through the city for centuries and now polluted and narrowed down due to encroachments, back to its glory in six months. The first bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice N Mala gave the direction while passing orders on a PIL petition from Kasturba and Indira Nagar Residents Welfare Forum, on Monday. The petition prayed for a direction to the authorities concerned to remove the encroachments on the Canal Bank Road on the stretch of Kasturba Nagar and Indira Nagar as admitted by an executive engineer of the Water Resource department in 2014. The bench said the engineer attached to the area shall strictly adhere to the timeline of six months given for demarcation of the boundary of Buckingham Canal. Considering the long pendency of this case from 2014, the bench made it clear that under no circumstance, the timeline will be extended. All the officials responsible for not keeping the timeline will be made accountable for such lapse irrespective of whether they are in service or retired, the bench said. No courts shall entertain any case whatsoever in respect of any dispute pertaining to the encroachments along the canal or grant any order restraining the authorities concerned which would affect the implementation of this order or removal of the encroachment. Any writ petition that may be filed shall be dealt with by the first bench of the Court. The bench also reminded the words of Mahatma Gandhi -- "be the change you want to see". If we aspire for a clean and pollution free environment then, we as civic citizens have to contribute towards it, the bench said. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.