NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that further construction of five huge shopping malls at Vasant Kunj here in the Capital in the "constraint area" of 92 hectares would be subject to grant of environmental clearance by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).

Acting on a petition from Ridge Bachao Andolan that the malls were being constructed in violation of all laws, the Court in May had passed an order restraining the builders from proceeding further with the construction. Subsequently the matter was referred to an expert committee, which submitted its recommendations to the Court. Disposing of the petition, a Bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S.H. Kapadia referred to the expert committee's report, which said, "It is evident that the location of large commercial complexes in this area was environmentally unsound. Now many proponents have constructed very substantially and awarding clearances even with conditions is largely a compromise with de-facto situation. At this stage only damage control is possible."

The Bench said the committee had clearly stated that the project could be recommended for environmental clearance. The confusion arose because the Delhi Development Authority all through gave an impression to the parties participating in auction that all requisite clearances had been obtained.

The Bench said that if the parties had any inkling that such clearances had not been obtained by the DDA, they would not have invested such huge sums of money.

"The stand that wherever constructions have been made unauthorisedly demolition is the only option cannot apply to the present cases," the Bench said.

The Judges held that in most of these cases construction was already complete and functional.

The DDA had also made some constructions at the site in question and that being so the recommendations of the expert committee should be accepted.

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