Pallikaranai Ramsar site land dispute: Madras High Court stalls construction of high rise towers till November 12

The Madras High Court, on Friday (October 31, 2025), directed real estate developer Brigade Enterprises Limited not to proceed with the construction activity at its Pallikaranai project in Chennai until November 12 since the Tamil Nadu government reported that the ‘ground truthing’ exercise for fixing the boundaries of the 1,248-hectare Ramsar wetland site would get concluded within a fortnight.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan passed the interim order on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by AIADMK legal wing office-bearer J. Brezhnev. The petitioner had urged the court to quash a building plan permission granted by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) to Brigade on January 23 this year.

Senior counsel V. Raghavachari, representing the petitioner, contended it was illegal to construct high rise residential apartments on a land falling within the prohibited zone of the Pallikaranai marsh which had been declared as a wetland of international importance in accordance with an intergovernmental treaty adopted at a convention held at the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971.

On the other hand, Advocate General P.S. Raman contended the Pallikaranai marsh reserve forest was spread over an extent of 698 hectares which remains under the control of the forest department. Apart from this, the government had to delineate an additional area of about 550 hectares and the process of identifying the ‘zone of influence’ through, ‘ground truthing,’ was underway, he said.

Explaining the process of ‘ground truthing,’ he said, it is used to compare the information collected from satellite images with the field observations and measurements taken through on site inspections. He said, the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management had undertaken the process at Pallikaranai since November 2024 and it was expected to be completed within two weeks.

Further, stating the land on which Brigade had planned its real estate project might or might not get included in the final Ramsar site of 1,248 hectares, the A-G said, the CMDA had granted the building plan permission about 10 months ago since the property remained to be a private ‘patta’ land as on date and the builder had obtained environment clearance too for its project.

The A-G said, the environment clearance had been granted by the State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) which was a body constituted by the Centre in consultation with the State government. He said, the SEIAA had inspected the land in question before granting environment clearance and only thereafter, the CMDA had approved the building plan.

Mr. Raman said, the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal too were seized of cases related to delineation of Ramsar site boundaries for the Pallikaranai marsh. The top court had on August 19 directed the State government to complete the ‘ground truthing’ exercise within two months. Similarly, the NGT had also directed the government to expedite the process, he added.

Land in dispute not a wetland: Brigade Enterprises

On his part, senior counsel C. Manishankar, representing Brigade Enterprises, asserted that the land on which his client had proposed to build high rise residential apartments was a dry land and not a wetland as claimed by the PIL petitioner. He said, the patta (revenue record relating to immovable property ownership) for the land in question had been issued way back in the 1980s.

He also told the court the real estate developer had to wait for 17 months to obtain the permission and that it was not granted overnight. Nevertheless, when the judges insisted that no damage be caused to the land until they hear the case next on November 12, Mr. Manishankar said: “Certainly MiLords, it is in our own interest too, that we do not proceed further.”