By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday deferred by two months the hearing on a plea by Kerala’s tsunami victims against the state government move to allocate land to them on improper location.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice Deepak Verma deferred hearing on the plea, while counselling the petitioners to await the outcome of their representation to the state government against its alleged bid to make them settle at improper location.
Recalling the 2004 tsunami, the petitioners from among the tsunami victims of Kerala’s coastal district Kollam said the natural calamity destroyed a large number of houses fully or partially besides taking a toll on thousands of human lives.
They said the state government, assisted by the central government, chalked out a plan to rehabilitate around 11,000 families of nine coastal districts at a safer place away from the sea coast.
The petitioners, in their lawsuit, added that to build 11,000 dwelling units, the central government gave a grant of Rs.1172.29 crore (Rs.11.72 billion) to the state government, which is to acquire around 500 acres of land to rehabilitate the victims of the state’s nine coastal districts.
The petitioners told the court that the state government, however, had chosen wholly improper land to rehabilitate the tsunami victims of Kollam district very near to the sea coast, which was prone to tsunami as well as erosion by sea during monsoon.
The land was within 100 metres of the high tide line and resettling people within such proximity of the coast was not just dangerous to human lives but they would also be living under the constant threat of sea erosion, the petitioners told the court.