Supreme Court agrees to examine PIL against rampant illegal constructions on rivers’ floodplains

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine a public interest litigation (PIL) filed against the rampant illegal constructions on the floodplains and catchments of the rivers and water courses across the country.

Issuing notice, a bench, headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, called for responses from the Union Ministries of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Jal Shakti, and Earth Sciences, the Central Water Commission, and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) within a period of three weeks.

The PIL said that the unauthorised constructions on the floodplains and catchments of the rivers, their tributaries, water channels, and all water courses have become the biggest causes of floods and associated devastation.

Referring to the floods and devastation caused in Himachal Pradesh in the last two years, it said that the incidence of illegal constructions of buildings and other structures, encroachments and impediments on the riverbeds and floodplains of rivers poses one of the biggest threats to the rivers.

"Over the last two decades, the scale of devastation has assumed frightening proportions owing to climate change-induced extreme weather events such as cloud bursts, GLOF (glacial lake outburst floods) and extreme sudden precipitation," said the petition by advocate Akash Vashishtha.

It added that several rivers, across the country, are critically impacted and threatened and are on the brink of disappearance due to the unregulated and unchecked illegal constructions along their riverbeds, floodplains and catchments.

The PIL said that the drying up of such rivers and tributaries poses a grave danger to the water security of the nation, besides the very existence and survival of future generations. It further said,

"Most of the illegal and unauthorised constructions, encroachments and impediments on the riverbeds, floodplains and catchments of rivers across the country have come up without the mandatory Consents to Establish and Operate under Section 25 of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974," it said.