Guj HC dismisses PIL against Rly construction work near Vadodara palace

The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking the court's direction to restrain the Railways from carrying out construction work on a four-storey building within the premises of the 106-year-old Pratap Vilas Palace, a heritage building in Vadodara.

It is where the last Maharaja of Baroda lived, and the new structure will will serve as the academic block for the public transporter's two premier institutes housed there.

The division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Ashutosh J Shastri dismissed the PIL filed by Vadodara-based Heritage Trust, while observing that Indian Railways, to which the property belongs, has assured to protect heritage without disturbing it while constructing the four-storey academic block for National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR) and National Railway and Transportation Institute (NRTI).

It also vacated its interim order dated December 16, 2020 restraining the Railways from taking any further steps towards the construction of the proposed building at the given site.

The court observed that preventing the Railways from constructing the building will be putting an additional burden on the state exchequer, adding that the proposed building was an academic block and not a tourist or commercial establishment, and has been planned due to space constraint. The court further said there is no proposal to make any kind of alteration to Pratap Vilas Palace. It also observed that the project does not interfere with air, river, forest, sea-shore, mountain etc., nor does it benefit any private party for commercial gain. The Indian Railways is coming up with a new academic block on its own land, it said. ''In the present case, the Pratap Vilas Palace is not a public property open to public access but is a restricted property owned by the Railways,'' it said, while dismissing the petition.

The PIL had sought that the Railways be restrained from constructing any building on the gardens or the area in front of the Pratap Vilas Palace or at any place ''that would obstruct the view and ambience of the palace or its gardens.'' The Railways has planned to construct the building ''right in front of the palace, very close to it, and in the lawns of the historic Raja Baug, which would completely obstruct the view of the palace,'' said the petition.

The palace, a 106-year-old historical and architectural icon of Vadodara, was built by Maharaja Sayajirao III Gaekwad, a reformist ruler who ruled the State of Baroda from 1875 to 1939. Upon his death in 1939, Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad became the 14th and last Maharaja of the State of Baroda, and the palace is named after him, it said. The state government had leased out the palace to the Centre, and the Indian Railways had set up NAIR there in the 1950s, while NRTI was also set up in 2018 in a building within the compound of the palace. The new institute will be moved to a new campus at Waghodia in Vadodara for which 31 acres of land has been allotted, the Railways told the court.

The Railways had further submitted that the proposed building would in no way hamper ''the precincts, architectural beauty and the renovation and refurbishment of the palace.'' The Railways also said the Pratap Vilas Palace was not declared as a protected monument under Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 or the Gujarat Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1965.

The need for the new academic block is to create ''a larger working space for efficient functioning of the institutions as well as for an integrated administrative block for NAIR and NRTI,'' it said. The work for construction of the new academic block is now with the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, which was required to prepare a master plan. After reconsideration, it was decided to push back the construction site of the new academic block to a site which would be at a distance of 321 feet from the palace, and ''this would completely leave the gardens of the palace untouched'', the Railways said in its reply.

It also said the Ministry of Railways has allocated an additional budget of Rs 20 crores towards refurbishment and the face-lift of the palace and its grounds.

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