SC dismisses Mantri Techzone's curative petition against Rs 117 crore penalty

The Supreme Court has dismissed a curative petition filed by Mantri Techzone Private Limited against the 2019 judgement that had upheld Rs 117 crore penalty on the real estate developer for encroachment of water bodies in Bengaluru.

A five-judge bench of Justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, Rohinton Fali Nariman, S Abdul Nazeer and M R Shah also rejected a plea for allowing oral hearing of the petition.

In a recent order, the bench said, "We have gone through the curative petition and the relevant documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this Court in “Rupa Ashok Hurra vs Ashok Hurra and Another” (2002). Hence, the Curative Petition is dismissed."

Curative petitions like review petitions are considered by judges inside their chambers through circulation of documents sans the presence of lawyers.

It is considered as the last legal remedy to avoid miscarriage of justice and to prevent abuse of the process against the final judgement of the top court.

Mantri Techzone had filed the curative petition against the order passed on August 6, 2019 in its review petition. The court had then declined to review its March 5, 2019 judgement.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri (since retired) and Nazeer and Shah had then set aside the National Green Tribunal's order of May 4, 2016 which enlarged the buffer zone limits around lakes and water bodies in Bengaluru from 30-metre limit. The Karnataka government and others questioned the direction for maintaining a buffer zone and green belt of 75 metres in case of lakes, 50 metres for primary, 35 metres for secondary and 25 metres for tertiary 'Rajkulewas'.

The top court, however, dismissed the appeals filed by Mantri Techzone Pvt Ltd and Core Mind Software and Services Pvt Ltd against the findings of encroachment of water bodies in Bengaluru.

It had agreed with the NGT's findings that the projects for setting up of Software Technology Park, commercial and residential complex, hotel and multi-level car parks in the protected zone in between the Bellandur Lake and the Agara Lake would cause serious damage to the environment.

The court had then declined to relax Rs 117 crore penalty imposed on Mantri Techzone Pvt Ltd and Rs 13.5 crore on Core Mind Software and Services Pvt Ltd for encroachment of water bodies in Bengaluru.