The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday dismissed a PIL petition, which had sought directions to the State government to cancel the Sri Parashurama theme park project established on Umikal Hill at Yarlapadi village near Karkala in Udupi district.
“The petition is nothing but a bundle of assumptions and presumptions and their own impressions of the petitioners, and filed with much delay as the project is nearing completion,” the court observed.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale and Justice Krishna S. Dixit, passed the order on the petition filed by Pramod Muthalik, president of the Sri Ram Sene, Dharward, and S. Bhaskaran of Bengaluru.
Though the petitioners claimed that they were representing the villagers for protecting gomal land, which has been used for the theme park, the main grievance of the petitioners was about the alleged poor quality in implementing the project, for which different government departments spent around ₹8.71 crore in the past few years, the Bench noted.
“This appears to be a remote-controlled petition. Why are no villagers in the petition? Do you have any cattle?”, the Bench orally observed during the hearing, on noticing that one of the petitioners is from Bengaluru and the other from North Karnataka, and that none of the villagers of the project area have joined the petition.
On contention of the petitioners that gomal (grazing) land was utilised for the project, the Bench noted that the petitioners failed to point out that the use of gomal land had affected either the grazing cattle or the villagers.
