The Madras High Court on Monday refrained from stalling the conduct of the Formula 4 night street car race in Chennai and instead permitted the Tamil Nadu government to conduct the race with certain conditions such as paying attention to the highest degree of public safety and avoiding inconvenience to public.
Second Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq made it clear that the in-patients of the Government Multi Super Speciality Hospital at Omandurar Estate, the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital or that of Madras Medical College Hospital should not be subjected to any inconvenience.
Since it was represented by a batch of public interest litigation petitioners that the speeding Formula race cars would generate a huge amount of noise, the judges insisted on installing sufficient number of sound arresters around the street car race circuit that had been planned around the Island Grounds in the city.
After recording the submission that the race was to be conducted by Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu in association with Racing Promotions Private Limited (RPPL), the judges ordered that the latter shall provide necessary protective gear to all the spectators for their safety during the race.
“RPPL shall also reimburse the expenditure made by the State government to the tune of ₹42 crore (for the creation of the street race circuit in the city) from the public exchequer prior to the conduct of the event,” Justice Mahadevan said while reading out the order in open court.
On being told that the State government had decided to spend another ₹15 crore each during the next two years too for the conduct of the race for three consecutive seasons in Chennai, the Bench said, that amount should also be paid by RPPL to the State government in advance.
The judges observed that RPPL could not expect anything more than facilitation, coordination and cooperation of the State authorities and that all monetary expenditure should be borne out only by the private company.
“In future, the State is expected to take upon itself the responsibility of conducting such events in furtherance of its policy to encourge the racing sport and seek the support of private bodies having experience and expertise in this field. This will ensure fairness and also dispel any doubt as to malafides in distribution of State largesse,” the judges wrote.
