The Madras High Court has granted an interim injunction against the Tamil Nadu Government’s order for the removal of natural gas pipelines laid as part of GAIL’s Kochi-Bangalore pipeline project.
Justice K.K. Sasidharan said in the order today that the part of the pipeline that had already been laid and other connected material should not be moved.
The case has been posted for July 9. The Court’s order, according to a counsel associated with the issue, was passed on a petition filed by state-owned gas transmission and marketing company GAIL in April. .
The Kochi-Koottanad-Bangalore-Mangalore natural gas pipeline traverses seven districts of the State — Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Namakkal, Salem, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri – over 310 km.
The pipeline’s total length is 1,146 km. Following protests by farmers in the region, the State Government had declared that GAIL needed to stop laying the pipeline across farmers’ fields and should instead align it with highways.