Thaindian News

Lucknow, April 4 (IANS) The Allahabad High Court Friday stayed the construction work on the Rs.5-billion Ambedkar Memorial and the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan being built here by the Mayawati government as a tribute to her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) icons. The Lucknow bench order came on a supplementary application in a pending public suit moved by Gomti Nagar Jan Kalyan Maha Samiti.

The PIL was moved way back in October 2006, well before the formation of the Mayawati government, essentially seeking the court’s intervention for the maintenance and upkeep of parks in Gomti Nagar, known as Lucknow’s most expensive residential area.

On Friday, the petitioner moved a supplementary application alleging “blatant change in land use” of the sprawling area taken up for development of the Ambedkar memorial as well as Ramabai Maidan.

The petitioner’s counsel B.K. Singh pointed out that the court’s earlier orders issued June 15, June 21 and July 27, 2007 restrained the government from altering the land use or allowing reduction in the green cover in the area.

Even as the government’s additional advocate general Jaideep Narain Mathur and chief standing counsel Devendra Upadhaya pleaded that there was no violation of the court’s orders and that the green cover stood as it was, the two-judge bench comprising Justices D.P. Singh and S.N. Shukla summoned the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) vice-chairman and the principal housing secretary.

The bench also directed the government to stop all construction activity on both projects that are dear to Chief Minister Mayawati. The case has been listed for April 10.