The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed two PILs filed against the construction of high-rise residential towers by Brigade Enterprises Limited on land allegedly falling within the restricted zone of Pallikaranai Swamp, a Ramsar-designated wetland.
First Division Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan refused to hear the PILs filed by AIADMK legal wing representative J. Brezhnev and anti-corruption organization Arappor Iyakkam as the Supreme Court was already hearing a similar case.
They also recorded a statement by Advocate General PS Raman representing the state government and Senior Counsel P Wilson representing the Tamil Nadu Wetlands Authority that the process of demarcating Ramsar boundaries for Pallikaranai Wetland has not yet been completed.
The Bench noted that the Supreme Court had taken up the issue of demarcation of Ramsar sites and invited all the state governments to submit the steps taken by them. The Tamil Nadu government had completed the ground truth exercise but was yet to complete several other procedures.
Only after the completion of the entire exercise would it be known whether the land on which the high-rise towers were planned would fall within the prohibited zone or outside the zone, the AG told the court, stating that till date the property was a ‘patta’ (private) land.
Senior counsel C. Manishankar and Srinath Sridevan, representing Brigade Enterprises, told the court that the patta (revenue record for private ownership of land) for the land was issued as early as 1935 and there was no way the property could be construed as part of a Ramsar site.
They told the Division Bench that even the state government had issued a press statement in October 2025 denying certain news reports and clearly stating that the lands in question were patta lands. It was only after a thorough review that the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority granted approval to the building plan.
The senior counsel added that the high court need not conduct parallel proceedings when the issue was dealt with by the Supreme Court and directed the Tamil Nadu government to submit the ground truth reports and other materials related to the demarcation of the Ramsar site.
Published – 10 Feb 2026 20:43 IST