The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the Maharashtra government and its metro rail corporation not to carry out any construction activity at the famous Futala Lake in Nagpur.
The lake, built by Bhosle Kings over 60 acres of land, is one of the important water bodies in Maharashtra.
A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Satish Chandra Sharma, on Thursday, took note of the submissions of senior advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan that an order of status quo on the ongoing construction was needed to save the water body.
He said concrete structures have come up at the lake.
Observing that 'there are anyway few wetlands remaining in the country', the bench asked the authorities to refrain from continuing with the construction activities for the time being and sought to know as to when they will remove the concrete structures including viewers' gallery at the lake.
Shankarnarayan said that despite the Ministry of Environment and Forest declaring the lake a wetland, more than 7,000 tonnes of concrete had been dumped in the tank and construction work for a steel fountain in the middle of the lake was being done in the name of beautification of the place.
He also said 16,000 square feet of land along the lake was being converted into a viewer's gallery.
The bench was hearing the plea of NGO 'Swaach Nagpur Abhiyaan'.
The plea said the Futala Lake is a wetland and large-scale construction there may destroy the ecosystem and aquatic life there.