In a judgment that cut through the fog of bureaucratic hand-wringing, the Supreme Court cleared the path for construction at the Punjab and Haryana High Court—verandah and green paver blocks included—dismissing concerns that such steps would threaten the site’s UNESCO World Heritage status.
The Chandigarh Administration had thrown every wrench it could find into the works, arguing that a new verandah outside Courtroom No. 1 could endanger the global prestige of the Capitol Complex, a Le Corbusier-designed architectural treasure. The Court, however, wasn’t buying it.
Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta were unimpressed with the doomsday predictions. They noted that similar verandahs already adorn Courtrooms 2 through 9, and this one was merely bringing symmetry—not sacrilege. The Court called the construction a “minimal protective measure,” and emphatically ruled it didn’t qualify as a structural deviation, much less a heritage violation.
The Administration had also raised alarms over bypassing UNESCO protocol—insisting changes to “Outstanding Universal Value” zones must go through the World Heritage Committee. They even said they were waiting on Le Corbusier’s original drawings from Paris and a Heritage Impact Assessment from IIT Roorkee. But the Supreme Court wasn’t persuaded to wait around while the paperwork circled the globe.
A senior advocate for the High Court administration reminded the bench that this wasn’t some radical intervention—it was a simple extension in the same architectural language. As for the 1956 letter that supposedly vetoed the verandah idea, it was dismissed as a lone opinion, not a binding legacy.
The Court also brushed aside a proposal for a temporary tin structure in lieu of a proper verandah, calling it an aesthetic misfit. Instead, the bench suggested that ex-post facto approval from the World Heritage Committee could be sought if absolutely necessary.
Beyond the verandah, the Court addressed another long-standing complaint—parking. A dusty kutcha patch outside the court sees some 4,000 vehicles a day. The High Court had ordered the area to be paved with eco-friendly green paver blocks. The Chandigarh Administration protested, citing the city’s Master Plan and calling it a protected green belt. The Court disagreed, noting the pavers would enhance the area without harming the environment—and even directed that trees be planted to boost vertical greenery.
Referencing its own past ruling in Rajeev Suri v. DDA, the Court stressed that sustainable development isn’t a compromise—it’s a necessity. If infrastructure can be modernized without wrecking environmental or heritage values, then progress should not be paralyzed by theoretical purism.
With that, the Court gave the Administration 12 weeks to comply, paused contempt proceedings for now, and lifted its own interim stay on construction.
For now, at least, modern necessity and heritage pride seem to have found a handshake in the court corridors of Chandigarh.