Marriage garden owners in Bhopal get conditional relief till June 5

In a major decision, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday provided conditional relief to marriage garden owners till June 15.

The NGT also directed them to deposit Rs 50,000 for each marriage booking with the additional district magistrate (ADM) Bhopal.

It also said that after June 15 no marriage function will be allowed unless the wedding garden owners have obtained all the required permissions.

The two-member central bench gave these directions while hearing the case filed by one Neel Choudhary.

The next hearing in the case will be on July 16.

On May 7, the NGT had directed the government to seal 38 marriage gardens in Bhopal so that they don’t operate without due permissions.

On Monday, the district administration submitted its report to NGT on 38 marriage gardens against whom closure notices were served earlier in March.

ADM Vikas Mishra in his report informed NGT that out of the 38 marriage gardens, eleven had got the required permission from Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), seven had been closed, closure notices had been slapped on 14 and applications for permissions were pending in case of six marriage gardens.

NGT directed MPSPCB and BMC to expedite the process of inspections and various legalities to complete the pendency of applications for permissions within three months.

The counsel for BMC told NGT that of 95 marriage gardens in Bhopal, they had provided permission to 23.

NGT in its order said marriage garden owners cannot ask for relief as they were aware that they don’t have all the required permissions while they booked functions.

“People made booking at such marriage gardens either because they were ignorant about these issues or were misled. On humanitarian ground, we would consider in mitigating their hardships on certain conditions,” the bench said.

Taking a note of the unregistered payments to marriage garden owners, NGT directed the district administration to get information about all the bookings from their registers and the amount that was paid.

“Also, marriage garden operators have to create a mechanism for segregation, collection and disposal of waste generated in the functions,” the bench said.

The bench directed that after marriage functions, MPSPCB and BMC will inspect the marriage gardens and submit a compliance report to the ADM regarding the fulfilment of various conditions. If ADM is satisfied with the report, it will refund Rs 50,000 against each booking, said NGT.