The Hon’ble Supreme Court has allowed the central vista project to go ahead.

Try this MCQ first:

Q.The architecture of the present Parliament House of India is inspired from:

a) Ekattarso Mahadeva Temple

b) Virupaksa Temple

c) Dilwara Temples

d) Brihaddeswara Temple

The Central Vista Project

• The project aims to renovate and redevelop 86 acres of land in Lutyens’s Delhi.
• In this, the landmark structures of the government, including Parliament House, Rashtrapati Bhavan, India Gate, North Block and South Block, etc. stand.
• This dream project of redeveloping the nation’s administrative heart was announced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on September 13, 2019.

Litigation over the project

• A petition was filed in the Supreme Court in April 2020, challenging the Centre’s change-of-land-use notification of March 2020 with regard to the 86 acres of land.
• The petitioner submitted that the order violated the citizen’s Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 by depriving people of open and green spaces.
• The petition also argued that the notification violated the Master Plan of Delhi 2021.
• Subsequently, the court heard the challenge on three main grounds: change of land use; violations of municipal law; and violations of environmental law.

What has the court held?

• In a 2:1 majority verdict, the court has held that there are no infirmities in the approvals granted.
• The verdict held that the central government’s change of land use for the project in the Master Plan of Delhi 2021 is also a lawful exercise of its powers.

History of Lutyens’s Delhi

• At his coronation as Emperor of India on December 12, 1911, Britain’s King George V had announced the transfer of the seat of the Government of India from Calcutta to the ancient Capital of Delhi.
• Thereafter, a 20-year-long project to build modern New Delhi was spearheaded by architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.
• They built Parliament House, Rashtrapati Bhavan, North and South Blocks, Rajpath, India Gate, National Archives and the princes’ houses around India Gate.
• New Delhi was unveiled in 1931.

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